LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



JA^frtw, 

Shelf jj&tll 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



, !| : j> : H r.:di!i 




Boy Travelers in Arabia: 

OR, 

FROM BOSTON TO BAGDAD : 



INCLUDING 



PICTURES, SKETCHES, AND ANECDOTES 
OF THE WANDERING ARABS, 



AND OF THE CITY 



"OF GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID." 



By DANIEL WISE, D.D., 

Author of " Summer Days on the Hudson," il Our Missionary 
Heroes and Heroines," etc. 



L.L.UST R AT E D. 



" How the earth burns ! Each pebble underfoot 
Is as a living thing with power to wound. 

The white sand quivers ; and the footfall mute 
Of the slow camel strikes but gives no sound, 

As if they trod the air, not solid ground." 



; 4 r 

NEW YORK: 
PHILLIPS & RUN%ZWK>vr 

CINCINNATI: 

CRANSTON & STOWE. 

1885. 



Copyright 1885, by 

PHILLIPS & HUNT, 

New York. 






INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



T ADY BLUNT'S interesting account of her 
•*"* journey across the Syrian Desert to Bagdad, 
in 1877-8, suggested the writing of the present 
volume. Her observations on the habits of the 
Arabian nomads, whose wanderings include 
the regions lying near the river Euphrates, and 
with whom she and her husband traveled and 
encamped awhile, combined with the descrip- 
tions of Burckhardt, Colonel Chesney, Layard, 
Ridgaway, Field, etc., constitute the basis on 
which this book is constructed. Gibbon and 
other standard historians are authorities for its 
historic facts. Hence the only fictitious ele- 
ment in it is the two boys and their instructors, 
who are here supposed to make the trip from 



6 Introductory Note. 

Boston to Bagdad. The reader is made to behold 
actual scenes and to comprehend real incidents 
by means of the lips and eyes of imaginary per- 
sonages. By this simple invention the writer is 
vain enough to think that he imparts consider- 
able valuable information in a form adapted to 
secure the attention and awaken the interest of 
youthful readers, to whom it might not be at- 
tractive in a more sober and didactic dress. He 
has aimed to blend entertainment with instruc- 
tion. Daniel Wise. 
Englewood, New Jersey. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

BETWEEN BOSTON AND ALEPPO. 

The home of two Boston boys — Their grandfather's gift — 
A traveler's visit — A long journey agreed to — Good-bye — 
From Boston to Scanderoon — A decaying town — A gayly 
clad Syrian— A beautiful bay — Starting for Aleppo— Rough 
riding — A night at Beylan — A ten hours' ride — Roughing it — 
In Aleppo Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

ALEPPO CASTLE AND THE ALEPPO BUTTON. 

Comfortable quarters —Missionary converts — The Turk — 
Gardens — City walls— The castle — Its capture by Abu Obei- 
dah — A cowardly king — The Aleppo button — The plague in 
Aleppo — The belfry of St. Zacharias 34 

CHAPTER HI. 

LAST DAYS IN ALEPPO. 

• Preparations — About Arabs of the desert — Hassan the 
sheikh — Purchasing horses — An Arab's love for his horse — 



8 Contents. 

The prison in Aleppo— The Oriental Robin Hood — Merchants 
and manufacturers in Aleppo — A cowardly Turk — Starting for 
the desert Page 56 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE WATER OP DESIRE. 

A cold ride — A dirty stopping place — A wolfish visitor — 
Mole tracks and jerboa holes — An Arab camp— Voices from the 
harem — Pitching tents — First tent-dwellers — The golden 
•house — Supper in the desert — A merry ride — First view of the 
Euphrates — A wild-looking Arab — The race of Ishmael. . . 76 

CHAPTER V. 

ON THE BANKS OF THE EUPHRATES. 

Breakfasting with an Arab sheikh — Arab boys — Arab virtues 
— An Arab vice — A delightful landscape — The Euphrates — A 
question iu geography — "Woodcocks and pigeons — A noon 
bivouac — Lions — An aqueduct in ruins 93 

CHAPTER VI. 

JOINING AN ARAB CAMP. 

Ruins — A good supper — A snake charmer's performance — 
In a jungle — Bozan killed by a lion — A Sabbath at Deyr — The 
captive Jews — Valley of the Khabour — Proof of Bible truth — 
In the desert again — What Richard saw — Hassan's defiance — 
Friendly Arabs — A grand spectacle — A friendly sheikh. . 110 



Contents. 9 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SHIP OP THE DESERT. 

The sheikh Mahmoud's hospitality — Viewing the Arab 
camp — Baby camels — What the Arabs do with their camels — 
Thirst of camels — Richard rides on a dromedary — The camel's 
hump — Hunting with a falcon — A bustard and a gazelle capt- 
ured by a hawk — How hawks are trained to hunt — Beauty of 
the desert in winter — Its heat in summer — What the Arabs do 
in the hot season — Richard nods Page 130 

CHAPTER VIII. 

HUZZA FOR BAGDAD. 

Growing weary of the Arab camp — Arab women grinding 
wheat and making bread — A desert storm — Startling news — 
The camp to be broken up — Ronald's inquiry — Araby the 
Blest — The sandy desert and Arabia Felix compared — The 
coffee-tree — Coffee from the husk of the coffee-berry — The 
home of the coffee-tree — About Mocha coffee — Starting for 
Bagdad — The professor's stories about Haroun-al-Raschid. 151 

CHAPTER IX. 

FAREWELL TO THE ARAB CAMP. 

A zigzag movement — A sick Arab — Arab religion — Happy 
as a king — Haroun-al-Raschid's character — Abu Isma's fate 
— Ismail made governor of Egypt — Leaving the Arab camp — 



10 Contents. 

At the ferry — Richard inquires about Alexander the Great's 
array — Richard's opinion of King Darius — Richard talks 
heroically — Ronald's mild rebuke — The professor's views — 
Called to the landing of the ferry Page 172 

CHAPTER X. 

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN BAGDAD. 

Queer creatures — Crossing the river — A greater than Alex- 
ander — Huzza for Bagdad — Birds on the lake — Fanatical 
Arabs — A ruined tower — An Oriental scene — A mistake — In 
a Bagdad khan — Sleeplessness — Haroun-al-Raschid and the 
Barmecides — Jaafar's fate — Haroun's sister beheaded — Jaa- 
far's two sons — The caliph's superstitious fears — His last pub- 
lic act— His death 190 



CHAPTER XL 

WALKING ABOUT BAGDAD. 

Breakfast in a khan — Bagdad streets and houses — Calling 
on the consul — The consul's mansion — Richard's gladness — 
A second walk about Bagdad — The Arab's story of the caliph 
and Mezrur— Story of a blind poet and the caliph — "Waiting 
for the consul — History of the caliph and his jester — The 
consul's greeting — At the dinner table — Reed boats — A short 
excursion — The governor's palace — A mosque — Cut in twain 
— Zobeide's tomb — White asses 209 



Contents. 11 

CHAPTER XII. 

FAREWELL TO BAGDAD. 

Origin of the word Bagdad — The Bagdad caliphs — Mocta- 
der's grandeur — Abdalrahman's gardens and palace— Only 
fourteen happy days — The key to a happy life — The broken 
banks of the Tigris— The young sheikh Ajel — A boy prince — 
On a minaret — A place of execution — The bazars of Bag- 
dad—The son of Ali— The foolish caliph— The Tartars in 
Bagdad — Tamerlane and the Turks — Preparing to quit Bag- 
dad Page 232 

CHAPTER XIII. 

HOME BY WAY OP DAMASCUS. 

Leaving Bagdad — Across the desert — In sight of Damascus 
— What Mohammed said about Damascus — A wilderness of 
gardens — Richard's enthusiasm — The spot where Saul saw the 
glory of Jesus — The golden river — Embowered streets — Rest 
in a hotel — Letters from home — Lions of Damascus — Street 
called Straight — House of Ananias— Conquest of Damascus by 
the Moslems — "Workshops and bazars — The great mosque — 
Tomb of Saladin the Great — Off to Beirut— Home again. .251 



Jfllttsiraiijcrns. 



PAGE 

Beirut 2 

Interior of the Khan 32 

Khan at Aleppo 35 

Hassan on the Lookout 122 

Dromedary 132 

Peregrine Falcon 142 

Women at the Mill 153 

Sand-Storm in the Desert 162 

Heron 195 

Alexandrian Donkey 229 

Court-House in Damascus 260 

Street called Straight. 264 

Saul's Escape from a "Window 266 

Bast Gate of Damascus 26? 

Interior of Great Mosque 2?4 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTER I. 

BETWEEN BOSTON AND ALEPPO. 

rpHE first scene of this narrative is in the 
-*- spacious parlor of a Boston merchant, 
whose home was one of those tall brick man- 
sions which overlook the beautiful Common of 
which Bostonians are so justly proud. Two 
brothers are standing together and looking with 
evident interest on a handsomely-bound book 
which lies open on the center-table before them. 
The elder of the two is about sixteen years old. 
He is of medium height, stout, and somewhat 
clumsily built. His complexion is florid, his eyes 
large and gray, and his nose so badly shaped as 
to partly spoil what might otherwise have been 
a very pleasing face. His name is Ronald. 
His brother, named Richard, is a tall, thin, 



14 Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

blue-eyed lad of nearly fifteen. His wide brow 
and almost Eoman nose betoken thought and 
energy, and yet there is something in his ex- 
pression which makes one think that he is in- 
clined to look on the dark side of things. Per- 
haps their conversation may interest us. 

Having glanced at the illustrations in the 
volume before them, Eonald puts it under his 
arm, and remarks: 

"I am glad grandpa thought of giving me 
the ' Arabian Nights' Entertainments ' for my 
birthday present. It is just the very book I 
have been wishing for this many a day." 

" So am I," replied the other. " I once read 
'Aladdin, and the Wonderful Lamp,' which I 
see is one of its tales, and I want to know more 
about the genii who are said to have done such 
wonderful things in that old Eastern world to 
which this book relates ; but we must hurry up. 
I see our fellows getting ready for a row on the 
pond. Let us go." 

A pebble may turn the course of a streamlet, 
and little things often give a new direction to 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 15 

the lives of boys and girls. It was a trivial 
matter for the grandfather to give Ronald 
Pelham a copy of the " Arabian Nights ; " yet 
it actually put an event into the lives of Ronald 
and his brother, of which neither he nor they 
so much as dreamed. 

Its first effect was to fill their imaginations 
with pictures of the strange life described in 
that charming volume. They both read it over 
and over again, and during the following week 
they could scarcely talk of any thing else be- 
sides Aladdin, Sindbad the Sailor, the Forty 
Thieves, the famous Haroun-al-Raschid, and his 
beautiful queen, Zobeide. Their excessive talk 
about these characters was becoming tiresome 
to their parents, and their playmates had begun 
to laugh at them, and even to nickname them, 
one Aladdin and the other Haroun, when a vis- 
itor appeared at their home whose conversation 
led to a desire on their part to visit the land 
where the heroes and heroines of their imagina- 
tion once lived, such of them at least as were 
real personages, and not imaginary characters. 



16 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

This desire had its birth at their dinner-table, 
while they sat as silent, bnt interested, listeners 
to the talk of their visitor, whom I must now 
formally introduce to your special notice. 

This gentleman's name was Dr. "Winterton 
Benedict, the elder brother of Mr. George 
Benedict, who was private tutor to these Pel- 
ham boys. He was a tall, finely-formed gentle- 
man, with a dark complexion, black, piercing 
eyes, prominent Roman nose, a heavy beard, 
and a carefully-trimmed moustache; and, as 
Richard whispered to his brother, he looked 
every inch a traveler. Though educated for the 
medical profession, he spent much of his time 
traveling in foreign lands. He had inherited 
considerable wealth from an aunt, and could, 
therefore, afford to indulge his passion for trav- 
el. He had been over Europe, had visited 
Egypt and Palestine, and had traversed consid- 
erable portions of India and China. He had 
also mastered several foreign languages. Dur- 
ing the conversation alluded to above he had 
answered many inquiries concerning those two 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 17 

countries, and just as they were about to leave 
the table Mr. Pelham said : 

"Well, doctor, you are indeed a great trav- 
eler. May I ask what country you intend to 
visit next ? " 

" I am not quite decided yet, Mr. Pelham. 
My inclination, at present, is to follow in the 
track described by Lady Anne Blunt, in her 
' Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates.' I want 
to see the land of the ancient caliphs, and to 
visit the once famous city of Bagdad ; to view 
the ruins of the ancient and once mighty cities 
of Babylon and Mneveh, and to become some- 
what acquainted with the Arabian tribes who 
wander in the great desert which borders the 
historic river Euphrates." 

Ronald's eyes sparkled with excitement as the 
doctor mentioned these names, and nudging his 
brothers arm, he whispered : 

" I wish he would take us with him ; don't 
you, Dick ? " 

" Not he," replied Richard, in a scornful half- 
whisper. " He don't look like the sort of fel- 



18 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

low to be bothered with young fellows like 
us." 

Their whisperings were not low enough to 
escape the ear of Mr. Pelham. He looked 
thoughtfully into the faces of his two sons, and 
after a few minutes of silent thought, he turned 
toward his visitor, and said : 

" Dr. Benedict, how would you like to take 
my two youngsters here under your wing, and 
show them the city where their great hero, 
Haroun-al-Kaschid, once lived and reigned ? " 

"That question cannot be answered without 
consideration, sir. Perhaps I might do it if my 
brother, their tutor, were to go with them ; not 
otherwise, certainly." 

The two boys were greatly excited by the 
bare suggestion of the possibility of treading 
the streets where the caliph of their imagination 
once reigned in splendor, and yet jested in so 
many odd disguises with his subjects. They 
scarcely dared to hope that this brief talk would 
lead to any thing more than talk, though they 
knew their father rarely made a proposal without 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 19 

some serious purpose to carry it into effect. On 
quitting the dining-room Mr. Pelham bade them 
go to their sports, and when they left the house 
they were so absorbed in the issue of the ques- 
tion to be discussed by their father with the 
tutor and the doctor, that they could not enter 
into their usual after-dinner games, but lounged 
under the wide-spreading elms which shaded the 
mall not far from their home. 

Mr. Pelham, however, was strongly inclined 
to give his sons the benefit of a trip to Bagdad. 
They were growing very fast, and were well ad- 
vanced in their preparations for college, and he 
thought a trip to the Euphrates and Tigris with 
such an experienced traveler as the doctor would 
benefit them in mind and body. Their mother, 
though reluctant to part with them so long, 
offered no positive objection to their going. 
His wealth made him indifferent to the exj)ense 
involved. Finding Mr. George Benedict, the 
private tutor of his sons, more than willing to 
make the journey, he, after a full and free talk 
with the brothers, agreed to send his sons in 



20 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

their company. The doctor, whose experience 
as a traveler fitted him to be a safe guide, con- 
sented to take the party across the great Arabian 
desert to the city of the caliphs, and beyond, if 
it should be thought best after reaching Bagdad 
to go farther. 

Ronald and Richard were noisily gleeful when 
informed of this arrangement. Their playmates 
said they were " a pair of crazy loons," and so 
demonstrative were they around the house while 
their outfit was in preparation that their good 
mother's patience was sorely tried by their antics. 
But as the doctor, like a sensible traveler, re- 
quired their outfit to be limited by their proba- 
ble actual needs, and as the autumn was already 
well advanced, the time soon came when they 
were to say that " good-bye " to father and 
mother and near relatives, which, in spite of 
the gleefulness of their anticipations, brought 
sharp pangs to their hearts and tears to their 
eyes. Yet those cheerless words were said at 
last, and they sped by rail to New York, took 
steam-ship to Havre, whence they passed through 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 21 

France to Marseilles. At this port they took 
steam-ship for Alexandretta or Scanderoon, on 
the coast of Syria. Alexandretta is the port of 
Aleppo, which was the city which they intended 
to make their starting-point for the great Ara- 
bian Desert. 

Their experience on the voyage, first to Havre, 
then from Marseilles to Alexandretta, is passed 
over because it was not marked by any thing 
strange or uncommon. They met with some 
heavy storms and had to pay the usual tribute of 
seasickness demanded by old ocean of most lands- 
men ; but of the whole passage Roland wrote 
to his mother, "It's no fun to be seasick, but 
after all it's not as bad as it might be, and, on the 
whole, we had a jolly time in crossing both the 
Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea." 

Let us, therefore, imagine our party just 
landed from the French steamer. The tall Dr. 
Benedict is walking up from the landing-place, 
Professor George Benedict, less robust and more 
genial in aspect than his brother, is standing 
still with his two pupils. The three are gazing 



22 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

with a curiosity natural to travelers to ascertain 
if they can, to what sort of a place they have 
come. Richard, as you now see him, wears an 
aspect of disappointment. Having just taken a 
view of the mud huts which make up the Syrian 
village of Alexandretta, he turns toward his 
genial-faced tutor and exclaims : 

"Professor, this place is nothing but a 
swamp ! It's a regular frog town ; it makes 
me sick to look at it ! The houses are mostly 
mud shanties ; there isn't a decent building in 
it — no inn, no church, no mosque ? Don't you 
think we had better signal the steamer and go 
to some place worth looking at % " 

" That's just like you, Richard," quickly re- 
plied his brother. " You always were very dif- 
ficult to please. For my part, I think we had 
better push on as quickly as we can. I dare 
say we shall find something ahead worth see- 
ing. So cheer up, old fellow, and don't act like 
a baby ! " 

"Yery sensibly said," added the professor, 
with one of his pleasant smiles. " We have 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 23 

come to Asia to see men and tilings as they are, 
not as we would like them to be, nor as they 
were in the olden time. This land was glorious 
once, but it is shorn of its glory now. Even 
this town at one time was a thriving place. 
Two great English trading companies for- 
merly carried on an immense traffic with the 
Eastern world through this port. Yast cara- 
vans came in here from Bagdad with bales of 
wool, costly shawls, aromatic spices, and other 
valuable articles. British ships landed cargoes of 
European goods to be exchanged for those sent 
from India, Persia, and other Eastern countries. 
But after it was found cheaper to send and 
receive goods to and from the distant East by 
ships, that old traffic fell off greatly, although 
there is still not a little merchandise taken by 
caravans between this port and the towns of the 
Euphrates and Tigris Valleys. Nevertheless, 
Scanderoon is like a broken-down merchant." 

" Scanderoon ! Why I took this place to be 
Alexandretta, professor!" exclaimed Kichard. 

" You are correct, my dear boy, and so am I. 



24 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

It was formerly called Seanderoon ; it is now 
Alexandretta — but see ! here comes the doctor, 
and he has evidently found one European gen- 
tleman here at least. There is a native with 
him, too, who is by no means a bad-looking 
fellow." 

The boys looked in the direction of the little 
hamlet, and were at once greatly interested by 
the gay dress of the native who was following 
the senior Mr. Benedict. The lively Ronald, 
after glancing at the Syrian, exclaimed : 

"There's something Oriental for you, Rich- 
ard! That fellow looks gay enough to be a 
performer in Barnum's greatest show on earth ! 
How grandly he struts in his red morocco 
boots! I guess he thinks himself equal to a 
pasha of ever so many tails. And see! his 
clothes are all made of striped cotton or other 
stuff. Turban, jacket, trousers, all striped. We 
will name him Zebra. Ha ! ha ! " 

The near approach of the doctor and his 
companions put a speedy end to the laugh 
caused by Ronald's queer little speech. They 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 25 

were then told that the doctor had made a 
friend of a gentleman belonging to the office 
of the British consul, that the gayly-clad Syrian 
was a carrier, or muleteer, who belonged to 
Aleppo, and was ready to furnish horses and 
mules and to guide them to that city, which 
was the first important point on their proposed 
trip to Bagdad. By starting as soon as possible, 
this Syrian told them, they could reach Beilan, 
nine miles distant, before night. This arrange- 
ment being made, the carrier started to get 
his horses and mules ready, while the doctor, 
guided by the friendly consul's clerk, made 
haste to purchase bread, onions, pepper, salt, oil, 
etc., sufficient, with what could be bought at 
the khans on the route, to sustain them during 
their journey to Aleppo. 

The bay at Alexandretta is one of the most 
beautiful sheets of water on the Syrian coast. 
The professor called the attention of the boys 
toward it by asking : 

" Did you ever see a stretch of blue water 
glistening beneath such a cloudless sky as this ? 



26 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

It is nearly land-locked, you see, and those 
distant hills give it a fine background." 

" It's splendid ! " replied Ronald, entering 
warmly into the spirit of his teacher. But 
Richard, less observing than his brother, said : 

"Yes, it's well enough in its way, but 
scarcely worth coming all the way from 
America to see." 

"How grumpy you are to-day, Dick!" ex- 
claimed Ronald, laughing. 

" Never mind," observed the professor. 
" Perhaps he'll feel better when he gets among 
the Arabs of the desert, as he will after a few 
days." 

Richard looked vexed, but said nothing, until 
after walking with the others to view the ruins 
of a large building once owned by one of the 
great British trading companies, and wandering 
about the narrow, muddy streets, they returned 
to the shade of the hut which held their bag- 
gage. They had been there but a short time 
when the good-humored Ronald shouted : 

" Hurrah ! here comes our Zebra." 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 27 

" Yes, here comes the muleteer with his man, 
with ponies for us and mules for our baggage," 
said the professor. "My brother has lost no 
time. We shall soon be on the road." 

The sight of the ponies had a cheering 
influence on Richard's temper. He and his 
brother made a rush for the rough-looking 
creatures, each wishing to select the liveliest 
of the lot for his own use. While they were 
getting mounted Ahmed, the carrier, and his 
attendants strapped the baggage to the patient 
mules, and in due time the word was given to 
start. 

Our party moved in high spirits. They rode 
slowly through the wet streets and along the 
rude causeway which crossed the marsh, and 
soon found themselves ascending the mountain 
road toward Aleppo. To their surprise, they 
met and passed many travelers, Turks, Arabs, 
Armenians, Greeks, Frenchmen, and Jews. 
Some were walking, others riding on camels, 
mules, donkeys, and horses. These people 
seemed intent on their own business, whatever 



28 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

it was, and, with one or two exceptions, did not 
even salute our party. There was nothing in 
this mountain road to excite remark by our 
travelers except when, after crossing a brook 
which babbled musically through a romantic 
ravine, Ronald exclaimed : 

" Look there, Dick ! As sure as my name's 
Ronald, there's a telegraph wire." 

" That's so," replied his brother, " and it's 
the first thing I've seen worth looking at since 
we set foot in Syria. I had supposed the Turks 
hadn't sense enough to know the value of the 
telegraph or brains enough to use it." 

" O, I dare say it was built and is run by the 
French or English," replied Ronald, digging his 
heels, as he spoke, against the sides of his lazy 
little pony. 

After riding about nine miles over a rough, 
stony road, in little more than two hours, our 
travelers came to a town named Beilan, built on 
the steep sides of a deep ravine. They halted 
near the khan, or caravansary, and while the 
doctor, who alone of the party could speak 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 29 

Arabic, was talking to Ahmed, the boys, still 
keeping their saddles, viewed the scene before 
them, making such remarks as it suggested. 
The first to speak was the critical Richard, who 
remarked : 

" A great improvement this on Alexandretta, 
isn't it, Ronald ? " 

" I should say so, Richard. The houses here 
are solid stone, and there are lots of them — sev- 
eral hundred, I should think. But how old 
they look stuck on the sides of this deep cut ! " 

" They look like great big bird-cages," added 
Richard, laughing. 

" And they have flat roofs," said Ronald ; " at 
least most of them have. I wonder why they 
build them so." 

" Because flat roofs are best suited to this 
climate and the habits of the people, who often 
find it pleasant, during their hot summers, to 
sleep on them at night," remarked the profess- 
or. " But, see ! my brother beckons us to fol- 
low him. He doesn't mean to have us lodge 
in the khan to-night, apparently." 



30 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

The professor was right. His brother had 
learned at Alexandretta that, although the 
greater number of the people of Beilan were 
Turks, there were a few native Christians in 
the town. Aided by Ahmed, he had found 
one of their houses, and arranged to lodge with 
its owner, whose name was Jakoob. Guided by 
the doctor, our party soon found themselves in 
the large square room of Jakoob's house. It 
was a comfortable apartment, with a raised plat- 
form running around its walls, and even Rich- 
ard was quite content to lodge in it. Its owner 
soon provided them a supper consisting of boiled 
rice, boiled eggs, and tea. To their surprise 
and pleasure, their host, with his family, con- 
sisting of twelve souls, assembled for evening 
prayers in this room. They sang hymns, and 
Jakoob's son read prayers very devoutly. 
After this service our party was furnished with 
mats or rugs to spread upon the platform, and 
being not a little wearied with the novel expe- 
rience of the day, slept soundly, and awakened 
refreshed at an early hour the next morning. 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 31 

After eating breakfast, also furnished by Ja- 
koob at a reasonable price, our travelers started 
early, intending to spend the next night at a 
khan called Ain Beta. After leaving Beilan 
they soon reached the highest point of the 
mountain road, which then gradually descended 
toward the plain beyond. There was nothing 
worth noting on their trip to-day, except that it 
took them ten hours to reach Ain Beta, and 
that they were very tired when they reached 
the khan in which they were compelled to lodge 
the second night. 

Kichard, on dismounting from his tough little 
pony, peeped into the yard of the khan. It 
was filled with mules and horses. After look- 
ing a moment or two on the scene he turned 
away with a rueful face. Shrugging his shoul- 
ders, he exclaimed : 

" Is this what they call a khan ? Do we have 
to lodge among mules ?" 

" Not exactly," replied the doctor. " This is 
the yard. Let us go into the khan itself." 

Passing into the large room for travelers, 



32 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



they found it like Jakoob's room, in that it was 
square, with a raised platform along the sides, 
on which to sleep. A fire was burning in the 




INTERIOR OF THE KHAN. 



middle of the earthen floor. Turks, both mule- 
teers and travelers, sat around it, some chatting, 
some cooking amid the smoke which floated 
about the building, there being no chimney to 
convey it to the upper air. In one corner was 
a little shop, at which coffee and food were 
sold. Our travelers, guided by the doctor, soon 
found places for their mats on the platform. 



Between Boston and Aleppo. 33 

The bread and boiled chicken they had brought 
from Alexandretta, with hot coffee purchased 
from the shop, made them a welcome, if not a 
dainty, supper. The chatter kept up by the 
Turks until midnight prevented them from get- 
ting much sleep during the first part of the 
night, and, feeling obliged to sleep in their 
clothes, even to their boots, they did not rest 
very comfortably during its remaining hours. 
When they were in their saddles after break- 
fast, Richard gave his opinion of this their 
first night in a caravansary by saying, rather 
gloomily : 

" This is what I call roughing it with a 
vengeance." 

But after riding all that day they had to 
lodge again in a khan at a place named Ter- 
mini. The day after they reached Aleppo, sev- 
enty miles from Alexandretta. What they did 
and what they saw there you shall be told in 
the next chapter. 



34 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTER II. 
ALEPPO CASTLE AND ALEPPO BUTTON. 

IT was late in the afternoon when our travel- 
ers rode into Aleppo. While approaching 
it they had caught glimpses of its decaying 
beauty from several hill-tops. Its lofty castle, 
its numerous towers, its slender minarets, and 
the rich greenery of its surrounding gardens 
had roused both Ronald and Richard from the 
weariness of their journey of seventy miles, and 
made them impatient to reach it before dusk. 
But their ponies could not be spurred out of 
their lazy pace, and it was nearly sunset when, 
amid quite a crowd of other travelers, they 
found themselves in the court-yard of a cara- 
vansary. 

The boys, with the professor, after slightly 
inspecting the interior of the khan, retreated to' 
its outside not at all pleased with the prospect 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 37 

of spending the night with the sorry-looking 
crowd which was preparing to lodge within its 
space. 

" There are more beggars than gentlemen in 
that crowd," remarked Konald, with a shrug of 
discontent, which, however, did not prevent 
him from adding, with a good-humored laugh, 
" but I guess we're tough enough to stand it for 
one night." 

His brother was evidently peevish, though 
silent. The professor smiled, and said : 

"Travelers to ancient places must make up 
their minds to endure what they cannot cure. 
To enjoy what is pleasing, they need to be 
guided by old Chaucer, where he says, 'Be- 
ware, also, to spurn against a nail.' If they do 
not, they will return, home more bruised than 
profited. But see ! Here comes my brother 
with a gentleman who might easily pass for a 
Yankee." 

Dr. Benedict had, indeed, captured, if not a 
New England Yankee, yet an English gentle- 
man belonging to the British consul's office, to 
3 



38 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

whom, having letters, he had previously writ- 
ten. This courteous man was as much de- 
lighted to see our travelers as they were 
to see him, since the presence of either 
European or American travelers in Aleppo was 
a rare occurrence. After exchanging the most 
cordial greetings, he conducted them to the 
house of a Syrian Christian, whom he had en- 
gaged to provide them entertainment. 

" There is no nail to spurn against here," 
remarked Ronald, after they had been feasted 
on chicken, eggs, bread, and coffee in the neat, 
wholesome room of this Christian Syrian. 

" I rather guess we are in clover for once," 
replied Richard, whose peevishness had been 
melted by the relishable food, the comforts of 
the house, and the gentle courtesy of their 
Christian host. 

After they had satisfied their hunger and 
seated themselves on the cushions, which cov- 
ered the benches that ran along the sides of the 
room, Ronald said to the professor : 

" I hardly expected we should find either mis- 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 39 

sionaries or church members in Aleppo. I 
thought its people were pretty much all Turks." 
Replying to this question the professor said 
that, while a majority of the inhabitants of 
Aleppo were Turks, yet many of them were 
either papists of the Greek Church, Maronites, 
Armenians, Syrians of mixed races, or Jews. 
The missionaries of the American Board, he 
said, had begun preaching the pure Gospel 
there in 1848, and. had formed a small church 
among them, their converts being won, not 
from the Moslems, but from those who had 
been very imperfectly taught, by Greek or Syr- 
ian priests, some of the truths of the Gospel. 
They had found the people inquisitive, but very 
ignorant, had opened schools for their instruc- 
tion, and had done some good among the people. 
For some reason, which he could not give, the 
mission had been discontinued, and Aleppo was 
then without a missionary. The Turks did not, 
as a rule, meddle with their work, though in 
1850 they had risen against the nominal Chris- 
tians of the city, killed many of them, and de- 



40 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

stroyed a vast amount of their property. " Our 
host," he said, " is a Syrian Christian, who 
probably knows little more of Christ than his 
sacred name." 

"I hate those Turks!" exclaimed Eichard ; 
" they are as savage as our Indians used to be." 

" And are now," added Eonald, " when they 
get a chance to tomahawk a white man." 

" Yes, they are a blood-thirsty race," said the 
professor, smiling at the vehemence of his two 
pupils. " And yet, I hardly think we ought to 
hate them ; though they have been a scourge to 
the lands they rule. Still it is our part not to 
hate, but to pity them for their wickedness and 
for the woes they thereby bring upon them- 
selves ; but their 'punishment belongs to the God 
of nations, who in due time will smite them 
with his avenging sword." 

"And his terrible sword," the doctor re- 
marked, with a solemnity which made the boys 
start, "is already out of its scabbard. The 
doom of the pitiless Turk hangs over him like 
a storm-cloud ready to burst." 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 41 

Nothing more was said after these prophetic 
words, and our party proceeded to place them- 
selves under the spell of " tired Nature's sweet 
restorer, balmy sleep." 

The next morning our party went out to see 
this very ancient city. Guided by the friendly 
consul's clerk, they first crossed a bridge which 
spans the Koeick, a stream which passes through 
Aleppo. Pointing down the valley of this 
little river, Richard exclaimed : 

" See, Ronald ! yonder are some splendid 
gardens." 

"Yes," observed the Englishman, "those 
gardens are the most attractive objects we have 
to show our visitors. "We have factories where 
bright cloths with threads of gold and silver 
are woven, where cotton prints are made and 
dyed. In such things you Americans far ex- 
cel us. But we can afford to be proud of 
our gardens. They extend continuously for 
twelve miles along the plain, and are very pro- 
ductive." 

After viewing the gardens awhile, they 



42 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

strolled to the moldering stone walls which, 
as they saw, inclosed the city. 

"These old walls are forty feet high, they ex- 
tend three miles and a half," said their guide. 
" You see they are flanked with several towers, 
and in the days when battles were fought with 
cimeters, arrows, slings, and javelins they must 
have made Aleppo a very difficult city to capt- 
ure, especially as yonder lofty castle com- 
manded the walls, and its garrison could send 
showers of arrows upon the assailants." 

This allusion to the tower led our travelers 
to look toward a massive structure built on the 
summit of an earthen mound, two hundred feet 
high, shaped like a cone, faced with smooth 
stones, and so steep as to be almost perpendic- 
ular. Beneath the mound they saw a depres- 
sion which was once a broad ditch, sixty feet 
deep, cut down into the rock, and could for- 
merly be filled with water from adjacent 
springs. It is thought that the earth taken 
from this ditch was used to build the mound. 
The tower itself is built of massive stones. It 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 43 

has but one gate, which is reached by a covered 
bridge that spans the spacious moat. 

Our travelers gazed with wonder on this 
mighty fabric. 

"It is not known who built it," observed 
Professor Benedict, who was well posted in 
ancient history. 

" Guess it was the genii who built Aladdin's 
palace," said Ronald. 

"It looks as if it might have required an 
army of genii to capture it when it was in its 
original condition," remarked the professor, 
"though Gibbon tells a romantic story about 
its conquest by Omar, the Saracen caliph, more 
than twelve hundred years ago." 

" Do tell us about it, professor," said Richard, 
with eager interest. 

Sitting on a heap of rubbish in the shadow 
of the dilapidated walls of the venerable castle, 
our travelers were told how Omar, in the year 
638, after conquering Jerusalem, sent a large 
army under the command of the brave Abu 
Obeidah to capture Aleppo. In stately array, 



44 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

with gorgeous banners, this proud army ap- 
peared before the city demanding its surrender 
in the name of its prophet, Mohammed. But 
Youkinna, the valiant chief who defended 
Aleppo, defied those blood-thirsty Saracens, and 
they at once began to siege it. In defending 
the walls, Youkinna lost three thousand of his 
brave soldiers; but nothing daunted, when 
driven from the walls he retired into this 
mighty castle and kept up the conflict through 
nearly five months. His brother, a monk, less 
brave than himself, advised him to make peace 
with the all-powerful Omar. Resenting this 
counsel, Youkinna stained both his hands and 
honor by taking his brother's life. The Sar- 
acens, to terrify him, cut off the heads of three 
hundred of his captured men beneath the walls 
of the castle. Still, with proud defiance, he 
continued its defense with a persistence which 
seemed proof against exhaustion. 

Abu Obeidah, disheartened by his own losses 
and by Youkinna's heroic defense, then wrote to 
the caliph that the hope and patience of his 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 45 

army were consumed, and that the castle could 
not be taken. 

" Remain before Aleppo until God shall de- 
termine the event," was the caliph's stern reply. 

With this message he sent some Arabs to re- 
enforce his discouraged army. Among them 
was a gigantic Arabian who had once been a 
slave. His name was Dames. After serving 
in the field about forty-seven days, this stout 
Arab said to the Saracen general : 

" Give me thirty men, and I will capture the 
castle." 

It seemed a rash proposal. Nevertheless, the 
general accepted it, gave him thirty warriors, 
and then, to throw Youkinna off his guard, 
withdrew his army a league from the city, as if 
he intended to raise the siege. Then Dames 
and his thirty braves, after climbing with great 
difficulty the face of the mound, lay in ambush 
beneath the castle wall, at a spot which seemed 
to him the easiest to scale. In the darkest hour 
of the night, he and his followers crept from 
their hiding-place. Seven of his strongest men 



46 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

mounted each other's shoulders. The broad 
back of the Arabian giant was the base on which 
this living column rested. The topmost man 
could just reach the battlement. Very cautiously 
he climbed over it into the castle. As soon as he 
was in he drew up a comrade with his unfolded 
turban. In this way the whole band got inside 
the castle walls, each man exclaiming as he 
was being drawn up, " O, Apostle of God, help 
and deliver us ! " Then with the stealth of 
serpents they crept up to the sleepy sentinels, 
stabbed them with their daggers, and threw 
them over the battlements. 

After these silent deeds of blood, Dames 
crept into the governor's palace. There he saw 
Youkinna and his officers rejoicing in high 
carousals over the supposed retreat of the Sara- 
cens. Leaving them at their wine and wassail, 
he returned to his thirty companions, led them 
with muffled tread to the one castle entrance, 
attacked and killed the guard, opened its massive 
gates, raised the draw-bridge, stood in the narrow 
pass holding the now-aroused garrison at bay, 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 47 

until, at the peep of dawn, the Saracens, as 
agreed beforehand, rushed across the bridge, 
and after a short but brief struggle raised the 
standard of their prophet above its battlements. 
And thus, not by fair and open fight, but by 
the cunning artifice of a gigantic slave, was this 
castle of Aleppo captured. 

" That General Youkinna deserved to lose his 
castle," remarked Richard, after hearing this 
story. " If he had kept a bright lookout, that 
giant Arab and his men would have been killed 
by the sentinels." 

" He was certainly remiss in that he did 
not suppose the retirement of the Saracens to be 
a ruse," said the professor. " But the fact that, 
after losing the castle, he renounced the Chris- 
tian religion and became a follower of the 
false prophet, shows that his character was not 
very high." 

" I hate turn-coats," rejoined Richard, " and 
as Youkinna* was one, I'm glad he was whipped 
out of the castle." 

"Those Saracens were brave fellows," re- 



AS Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

marked Ronald. "They seem to have swept 
rapidly over the world like heroes bent on con- 
quest or death." 

" Had their rule been as wise as their courage, 
they might have been benefactors instead of 
oppressors to the wicked, worn-out races they 
conquered. But even they had some cowards 
among them," remarked the doctor. 

"Had they, doctor?" exclaimed Ronald. 
" Please tell us about them." 

" That might be too long a tale," replied the 
doctor. " But since we are talking of Aleppo 
and its conquerors, I will tell you of Seifeddowlat, 
who was king of this city some three hundred 
years after its capture by the brave Abu 
Obeidah. History tells us that toward the end 
of the tenth century, Theophania, empress of 
the Eastern Roman Empire, married a heroic 
soldier named Nicephorus Phocas. Placed over 
her splendid army with another man of the 
same impetuous courage, this general assailed 
the Saracens in Asia with irresistible force and 
wrested the principal cities of Syria from their 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 49 

dominion. "When Seifeddowlat, then king of 
Aleppo, heard how the armies of Csesar and the 
Cross had conquered the armies of Mohammed 
and the Crescent, and that Antioch had been 
captured by Kicephorus, he seemed like one 
smitten with fear. Forgetful of his former 
military glory, he no sooner learned that the con- 
querors of Antioch were marching toward 
Aleppo than he hastily retreated without vent- 
uring to fight a single battle. "When the 
Romans reached the environs of the city they 
found his stately palace, which stood outside 
the walls, deserted, but filled with treasures of 
arms, gold and silver, and near it an immense sta- 
ble containing fourteen hundred mules. All this 
they gladly seized ; but when they approached 
the walls, they found that the soldiers of the 
fugitive king, more brave than their master, 
defended them with very great resolution. The 
walls were strong and resisted the battering- 
rams of the Romans. Then Nicephorus with- 
drew his troops to the neighboring mountains, 
expecting, perhaps, to starve the city into sub- 



50 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

mission. But the citizens and the soldiers began 
to quarrel with each other. The former for- 
sook the gates and ramparts to fight with the 
latter in the market place. The watchful Ho- 
rn ans seized this opportunity to surprise their 
foolish foes. Forcing their way through the 
unguarded gates they rushed upon the unwary 
garrison, put every soldier and male citizen to 
the sword, led ten thousand youths into cap- 
tivity, collected as much spoil as their beasts of 
burden could carry away, and committed the 
remainder to the flames. After ten days of 
riotous triumph, they marched away, leaving 
Aleppo, says Gibbon, i a naked and bleeding 
city. 5 " 

" It seems to me," remarked Kichard, " that 
those Roman Christians were no better than the 
Saracens." 

" Except in name they were not," replied the 
professor. " They had, indeed, little of Chris- 
tianity besides its name, and its truths, which 
were little more to them at that date than a 
dead letter." 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 51 

Our party now left the half-ruined old castle 
and went into the narrow streets. As they 
sauntered along, looking at the stone houses 
with winch they are lined, the boys noticed a 
plump little girl, whose rosy cheeks were dotted 
with red spots about the size of one's finger- 
nail. After she was out of hearing, Ronald 
turned toward Dr. Benedict and asked : 

" Doctor, did you see that girl's face ? " 

" Yes ; she has what is called the Aleppo 
button." 

" The Aleppo button ! " exclaimed both boys, 
speaking'together. 

The doctor explained that singular phrase, 
telling them that it is a small ulcer or pimple 
which attacks children, as measles do in Amer- 
ica. It usually comes on the face, sometimes 
on the hands and feet. Some have one or two 
only, others six or seven. The first soon dry 
up, but new ones keep coming for about a year. 
Then the disease disappears, and never returns 
a second time. If let alone the ulcers do no 
harm. If rubbed or picked, they leave scars 



52 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

like vaccination marks. The disease is not con- 
fined to Aleppo, but is found in many other 
places, even as far as Bagdad, where it is called 
the " date mark." 

Richard, always alive to the dark side of 
things, looked very rueful while learning these 
facts from the doctor, and replied : " Don't you 
think we had better get out of this place 
quicker than we came into it ? I, for one, don't 
wish to carry home an Aleppo button on my 
face." 

" It would be a pity to spoil your handsome 
phiz," replied the doctor, laughing. "'But you 
need not be frightened. Strangers are very 
rarely ornamented with the Aleppo button." 

Richard's face brightened on hearing this. 
Nudging his brother, he said : " I'm glad of 
that, aren't you, Ronald ? Wouldn't you look 
beautiful if you were to have an Aleppo button 
on your little nose, eh ? " 

Ronald was quite sensitive about his nose, 
which was not as handsome as it might have 
been, and impolitely retorted, " Get out ! " 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 53 

" Touchy as you seem to be about your nose, 
Master Ronald," said the doctor, " you would, 
I think, prefer to have it adorned with the 
Aleppo button to being stricken with a still 
worse evil which breeds in this city." 

" What is that, sir ? " asked Richard, looking 
intently into the doctor's face with an expres- 
sion of alarm. 

" The plague ! " replied the doctor, with em- 
phasis. 

" The plague ! " exclaimed the boys, as with 
one voice. 

" Yes, the plague, my boys. It is the pest of 
the place, and hovers over it like an angel of 
destruction. It hides in cess-pools and gutters, 
in accumulations of filth, in pools of slimy wa- 
ter, and in unclean houses. Once in about ten 
years it quits its hiding-places and spreads a 
deadly fever throughout the city. Then hun- 
dreds, yes, thousands, are smitten with death. 
Less than a century ago, no less than sixty thou- 
sand of its people perished in a short time by 

the stroke of this terrible pestilence." 
4 



54 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" Sixty thousand ! " exclaimed Ronald. " It 
must have left the place with no one in it." 

"Its population was much larger then than 
it is now. In 1822 it contained two hundred 
thousand souls. In that year an earthquake al- 
most destroyed it. It has never since recovered 
its former numbers. To-day it has probably 
not more than from a hundred to a hundred 
and fifty thousand inhabitants." 

"What an unlucky city!" exclaimed Rich- 
ard. " I don't think I care to live in it." 

In the course of their walk our party came 
to a large square tower, called the Belfry of 
Saint Zacharias, about which their companion, 
the Englishman, told them a curious legend. 

According to this legend, Caliph Omar's 
troops had no sooner gained possession of Alep- 
po than all its Christian churches were turned 
into mosques. Their towers were used as min- 
arets, and a muezzin appointed to each, that 
from its summit he might make his call for 
daily prayer. The first muezzin who did so 
fell from the tower and was killed. The sec- 



Aleppo Castle and Aleppo Button. 55 

ond died in the same shocking manner. The 
third was an old man, who, fearing the fate of 
the other two, stopped to pray in the church 
before ascending the tower stairs. While he 
was praying an aged man stood before him and 
said: 

" Fear not, I am Zacharias ; I will spare your 
life if when you cry the prayer-hour from my 
tower you will add to your call a phrase in 
Greek, which is in the Christian prayer book." 

This the alarmed muezzin promised to do. 
His life was, therefore, spared ; and thus the 
call to worship the true God was joined with 
the call to pray in the name of the false 
prophet. 

The whole of their first day in Aleppo was 
spent by our party in traversing the streets, 
viewing its few sights, and talking of their plans 
for a journey into the country of the Arabs 
who lived in the plains beyond. 



56 Boy Travelers in Arabia 



CHAPTER III. 
LAST DAYS IN ALEPPO. 

THE weather in Aleppo was so wet, cold, and 
windy that our travelers were unable for 
several days after their visit to the castle to be 
very much out-of-doors. Richard and Ronald 
chafed somewhat under their enforced confine- 
ment to the house, but the doctor and his brother 
were, as Ronald said, " like busy bees," making 
preparations for their farther journeying into 
the land of the Arabs. As it was their inten- 
tion to travel for a time with the Aenezes, 
one of the principal tribes of those wanderers 
in the desert, they had to hire servants, pur- 
chase horses, mules, cloaks, boots, presents for 
the sheikhs, and such other articles as were 
needed for their outfit. They had also to look 
for some friendly sheikh of the Aeneze tribe to 
be their guide. They were told, both by the 



Last Days in Aleppo. 57 

native Christians and the gentlemen of the Brit- 
ish consulate, that with such a guide it would 
be entirely safe for them to join his tribe of 
wandering Arabs in their accustomed winter 
removal from the vicinity of Aleppo to the 
southern portion of the Syrian desert. 

While the doctor and the professor were talk- 
ing about their plans and preparations, one 
evening, Ronald asked : " Are not the Arabs 
big thieves, doctor? Wont they rob and per- 
haps kill us when we put ourselves in their 
power ? " 

" Yes, the Arabs are thieves ; Mr. Burck- 
hardt, who traveled much among them, says 
they are a nation of robbers, whose principal 
occupation is plunder. An Arab will rob his 
enemies, his friends, and his neighbors, pro- 
vided they are not in his own tent. Indeed, he 
prides himself on being a robber. He glories 
especially in taking by stealth from his enemies 
what he is not strong enough to seize by 
force." 

" I guess they are very cunning rogues," re- 



58 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

marked Richard. " The consul's son told me 
this morning of a dozen of them who dressed 
themselves in rags, took bags of flour and salt, 
with a skin bottle for water, and traveled away 
from their tribal camp four or five days until 
they came near the camp they meant to rob. 
There they hid themselves, like snakes in the 
grass, until the hour of midnight. Then three 
of them stole, as noiselessly as our Indians, up 
to the tents. One of them went near the 
watch-dogs, which rushed out to bite him. He 
ran away ; the dogs ran after him a long dis- 
tance from the tents. Meantime one of his fel- 
low-thieves crept up to the camels, which were 
lying in front of the tent, cut the strings which 
tied their legs, and then quietly led away a she- 
camel. The others, as is usual, quietly followed 
her. On reaching the spot where the other 
thieves lay hidden they ran and beat off or 
killed the dogs, which were still at the heels of 
their companion, and then drove the stolen 
camels away as fast as they could be made to 
gallop. Really, doctor, it looks very much like 



Last Days in Aleppo. 59 

walking into a lion's den to go among such a 
gang of robbers. If we go I hope you will 
give each of us a six-shooter." 

" What's the use of a pistol in an Arab 
camp?" asked Eonald. " Do you think they 
would give a fellow a chance to use it ? Not 
they ! They would steal it from under your 
pillow while you slept." 

" You are right, Eonald," said the doctor. 
" Pistols would not amount to much. If we 
had nothing better to trust in than our weapons, 
we had better not put ourselves into their 
hands ; but we can go among them with per- 
fect safety if we can make one of their tribe 
our friend, as we shall do before we venture 
into the desert. Bad as the Arabs are, they 
never rob or injure a guest. Any man who has 
a single protector in any one tribe is sure to be 
treated as a friend, not only by that tribe, but 
also by all other tribes in friendship with it. 
With them a guest is sacred. Many English- 
men, years ago, used to go to and from India 
across this desert, but not one was ever known 



60 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

to be robbed by any Aeneze guide, or by any 
tribe in friendship with his. A sheikh will 
drive as hard a bargain for guiding you as he 
can, but when once the bargain is made he will 
be faithful. So I think we may trust to Arab 
hospitality without fear or pistols." 

The boys laughed at the doctor's thrust at 
Richard's pistols. He then told them that he 
was in treaty with a trusty sheikh named Has- 
san, and also with an Arab who wished to sell a 
couple of horses for himself and the professor. 
If the boys wished, he said, they might go with 
him on the morrow to see the horses, and, if the 
weather permitted, to try the ponies he had al- 
ready purchased for their use. 

Of course they did wish to go, because, as 
Eichard remarked, they had not come to Aleppo 
to sit cooped up on the platform of a gloomy 
old house which was as dull as a jail. Rain or 
no rain, they would go to try their ponies. 

The next morning, though not rainy, was cold 
and damp, but the boys were so pleased to be 
out that they did not mind the biting north 



Last Days in Aleppo. 61 

winds. On reaching the consul's office, to which 
they had already been courteously welcomed, 
they found Hassan, the sheikh. His tawny face 
was not very attractive. His deep-set black 
eyes flashed with light from beneath his bushy 
black eyebrows, but their expression invited 
mistrust rather than confidence. His long black 
hair fell in tresses over his cheeks down to his 
breast. He was about five feet three inches 
high. On his head he wore the Arab turban, or 
keffie, made of a yellow cotton and silk mixed 
kerchief. This kerchief was a square, so folded 
about his head that one corner fell backward 
and the other two corners hung over the front 
of his shoulders in sufficient lengths to cover 
his face when necessary to protect it from the 
sun, the wind, or the rain, or, when he wished, 
to conceal his features. A cord made of camel- s 
hair was tied round his head. Over his cotton 
shirt or gown he wore a pelisse, with short wide 
sleeves, made of sheep-skins stitched together. 
This was his winter coat. His feet were made 
gay by a pair of yellow boots. As this was the 



62 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

first Bedouin slieikh the boys had seen they 
looked at him with curious eyes, while the doc- 
tor bargained with him in Arabic, which, of 
course, they did not understand. 

Having agreed with Hassan to conduct them 
to the encampment of his tribe, the doctor next 
led the boys to a khan, where he was to meet the 
owners of the two horses he meant to purchase. 
The beasts were led out from the court of the 
khan, but did not commend themselves either by 
beauty of form or by the smoothness of their 
hair. 

"Can these be Arabian horses?" exclaimed 
Eonald. "I thought Arabian horses were all 
handsome and elegant creatures. But these 
rough, dirty beasts look like hacks which have 
never had brush or curry-comb on their backs 
since they were foaled ! " 

The professor told them that really fine-look- 
ing Arab steeds are not as numerous now as in 
past times, though many that were not high- 
bred in appearance were excellent travelers, 
swift in action, and capable of wonderful endur- 



Last Days in Aleppo. 63 

ance. As to the unkempt aspect of the animals 
before them, that was very common, since the 
Arabs never clean or rub their horses, neither 
do they keep them inside their tents, but in the 
open air, yet with the saddle constantly on their 
backs. This seems like harsh treatment, but 
the animals, being trained to it, do not appear to 
suffer. They are very gentle creatures. Their 
masters caress them like children, feed them on 
barley, sometimes on dates, in some cases on raw 
and boiled flesh, and rarely part with them un- 
less forced by poverty to do so. 

As it took some time for the doctor to bring 
the greedy owners of the two horses to accept a 
reasonable price, the boys, to pass the time, had 
their ponies saddled and brought out. They 
mounted, and, despite the mud of the rough road, 
rode some two or three miles, returning just in 
time to see the poor Arabs kissing, caressing, 
and talking to their horses, as if in deep grief 
at parting with them. 

Giving their ponies to an attendant, the boys 
looked with surprise at the excited Arabs, won- 



64 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

dering much at their strange conduct. After 
gazing at them awhile, % Richard, stepping to the 
professor's side, asked : 

" Are those fellows crazy, Mr. Benedict 1 " 
" No, not crazy, but grief-stricken ; like all 
Arabs they are reluctant to part with their 
horses. Their actions remind me of an incident 
related by a French traveler who saw an Arab 
parting with a beautiful mare which he had just 
sold. The fellow wept tears of tenderness, 
kissed and embraced the animal, wiped her eyes 
with his handkerchief, rubbed her with his shirt 
sleeves, and talked to her, saying : ' My eyes, 
my soul, my heart ! must I be so unfortunate as 
to sell thee to another master and not to keep 
thee to myself ? I am poor, my antelope ; I 
have brought thee up like a child ; I never beat 
nor chid thee. Thou art pretty, thou art sweet, 
thou art lovely, my dearest ! ' And then, again 
embracing her and kissing her eyes, he bade 
her good-bye and sadly went his way." 

" Well," remarked Ronald, very gravely, " if 
these Arabs can love their horses like that, they 



Last Days in Aleppo. 65 

can't be a very bad set after all. There must be 
a good spot in them somewhere." 

" Very good, my young philosopher ! " ex- 
claimed the doctor, laughing. " The fidelity of 
the Arabs to their guests is one good spot. We 
will try to find some other virtues in them when 
we travel with them. But we must not tempt 
them by putting over much confidence in their 
virtues." 

The day previous to the one fixed on for their 
departure, being clear and dry, our travelers 
spent in visiting such portions of Aleppo as they 
had not yet seen. 

The doctor had procured them permission to 
visit the city jail, and, moved by curiosity, they 
entered and found it, as Lady Blunt describes 
it, very unlike their impressions of an Oriental 
prison. It was in a large square open court, 
with blocks of buildings on two sides, and walls 
on the other sides sufficiently high to secure the 
prisoners, yet not so lofty as to totally shut 
the adjacent edifices from view. In the build- 
ings were cells, each of which, on the ground 



66 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

floor, was occupied by three or four prisoners 
confined for petty offenses. The cells appeared 
comfortable, their inmates looked like lazy, well- 
fed fellows, who were kept in order by a jailer 
by the liberal use of the stick with which he 
was armed. In the upper story of these cells 
were murderers and robbers, many of whom 
were in chains, but bore no other marks of 
rough treatment. 

After leaving the jail, Dr. Benedict said: 
" Those fellows look i fat and healthy,' as Lady 
Blunt says in her book she found them. I sup- 
pose their treatment depends, not so much on 
law or even custom, as on the disposition of the 
ruling pasha, who can be as cruel as he wishes 
to be." 

The professor then asked the doctor if he 
could recall what Lady Blunt said about a bold 
but jovial bandit who was formerly kept in this 
prison. He replied that he could, and then, as 
they slowly sauntered along the streets, he told 
them how a few years ago a Kurd, named Curro, 
owned a vineyard at Aintab, where he lived a 



Last Days in Aleppo. 67 

peaceful and industrious life. A rich man, who 
lived near him, coveted his snug little property 
and, pretending to have a claim upon it, sued 
for its possession. By bribing the judge, the 
rich rogue gained the case, and poor Curro was 
driven from his homestead penniless and indig- 
nant. 

This man, the doctor said, had the spirit of 
Robin Hood, so famous in English ballads. He 
took to the mountain forests as a robber. His 
first exploit was to stop a Turkish officer on the 
highway, from whom he took seven thousand 
piasters, a sum which represented the value of 
his vineyard. With ready wit he then drew a 
bill on the pasha for that amount, and told the 
Turk to go to Aleppo and collect it. 

Of course, this jest did not make him other 
than a thief. Knowing this, and being a bold 
man, he formed a robber band and became their 
chief. Like Robin Hood, he often gave to the 
poor what he stole from the rich. Meeting a 
peasant one day with a basket of grapes on his 
head, he stopped the affrighted man and asked : 



68 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" Why do you carry that heavy basket ? Have 
you no donkey % " 

" No, my donkey died, and I have no money 
to buy another." 

" What do donkeys cost in your village ? " 

"Five hundred piasters." 

" Well, here is the money. Get a beast to do 
your work, and when I come this way again and 
find you with your basket on your head, I will 
cut it off." 

" That was a pretty sure way to make the 
peasant buy a donkey with the money. ~No 
donkey, no head ! Ha, ha ! " laughed Eich- 
ard. 

At another time, the doctor said, Curro met 
a man who had been a year in Aleppo working 
to earn money enough to get married. He had 
the amount of his earnings in his pocket, which 
Curro took from him. The poor fellow begged 
him not to keep it, saying : " If you do, I must 
go back to Aleppo and begin again." 

" What ! " exclaimed the brigand, " can you 
get married with this money ? Nonsense ! Here 



Last Days in Aleppo. 69 

is something to make the sum respectable. I 
hate pauper weddings." 

The peasant took the sum offered him by the 
genial robber, and went away rejoicing that he 
had met such a liberal thief. 

At another time Curro met a bridal party on 
a lonely road between two villages. " I am 
Curro," he said ; " give me your money." 

" We have none. We are poor people," the 
affrighted party replied. 

"Those gold coins on the bride's neck are 
good. Give them to me ! " rejoined the robber. 

" What ! " exclaimed the bride, with scorn, 
" do you call yourself Curro % " 

The robber laughed at this spirited appeal, 
and went away leaving the coins on the bride's 
neck. 

Curro one day robbed a Jew of Aleppo of 

merchandise worth about one hundred and 

thirty-five dollars. The merchant reported his 

loss at about eight hundred dollars. Curro 

heard of his statement, and wrote to the pasha, 

saying : " My dear friend : The property I took 
5 



TO Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

from the merchant was only worth one hundred 
and thirty-five dollars. I inclose an invoice and 
samples of the goods. I felt obliged to do this 
in the interests of honesty." 

" Honesty ! O, O ! what an impudent jester 
Curro was ! A thief writing about honesty ! 
What a queer conscience the fellow had ! " ob- 
served Ronald. 

" I judge his conscience was what in algebra is 
called a minus quantity," Professor Benedict ob- 
served. " The poor fellow had never been 
taught to discriminate very clearly between right 
and wrong. Having been robbed himself, he 
foolishly believed that he might rob others 
without incurring much guilt. He ought to 
have known that the crime of one man cannot 
justify the sin of another." 

" But," said the doctor, " Curro found at last 
that the way of the transgressor is hard, even 
in badly governed Syria. Although, like Robin 
Hood in Sherwood Forest, he made himself a 
popular hero, yet he was betrayed at last by a 
miller in Aleppo, whom he believed to be his 



Last Days in Aleppo. 71 

friend. Having sought a lodging, as was Ins 
custom, at this man's house, he found himself 
surrounded by soldiers who had been secreted 
in the mill by his false-tongued host. He was 
arrested, tried, and, since no one charged him 
with murder, he was not executed, but sen- 
tenced to spend fifteen years in prison. A just 
sentence, no doubt ; yet one cannot help feeling 
pity for this Oriental Robin Hood, because he 
was the victim of the unhappy circumstances 
which soured the milk of natural kindness in 
his heart, and transformed him from an honest 
peasant into a dishonest though good-natured 
robber." 

This talk about Curro had been frequently 
interrupted by observations on what they saw 
in the streets as they proceeded. They were 
surprised to find so many manufactories of 
various kinds, and to see such beautiful woolen 
and cotton cloths, curiously striped and orna- 
mented with gold and silver threads, as were 
produced from its more than four thousand 
looms. They noticed also that English mer- 



72 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

chants had shops in its streets, that its more 
than a hundred thousand inhabitants, consisting 
of Turks, Greeks, Maronites, Armenians, Syri- 
ans, and Jews, seemed to be busy and generally 
prosperous. Yet it was a decaying city, more 
or less dirty. Its castle, its walls, and many of 
its old houses were sinking into ruin. While 
observing these marks of neglect, Ronald 
said : 

" What a fine place this might be made ! " 
" Yes," replied the professor ; " but the Turk 
never repairs, never improves his possessions. 
He might easily free this ancient city from the 
visitations of the plague which, as the doctor 
told us yesterday, strikes it almost every dec- 
ade, and sweeps its thousands into the grave. 
But he does nothing to cleanse and drain it. 
Allah sends the plague, he thinks, and all he 
has to do is to submit to it as something or- 
dained by an irresistible fate. But the Turks, 
though once brave and powerful, have almost 
run their race. Their best qualities have de- 
parted ; their vices only flourish, and it will not 



Last Days in Aleppo. 73 

be long before they will cease to be rulers, 
either in Europe or Asia." 

" I wonder the people here don't fight them," 
said Richard, with sharpness. " It seems to me 
that their pluck is all gone. One of the con- 
sul's clerks told me a capital story yesterday 
about a Turkish effendi who, when on a jour- 
ney from this city, encamped one night near a 
village. His servants went to a merry-making 
in the village, leaving him alone in his tent. 
About midnight a single robber lifted the flap 
of his tent, strided in, and said, ' Give me your 
money ! ' The Turk, afraid of the bold brig- 
and, quietly gave him his purse. Then the fel- 
low, looking among a stock of fire-arms, grasped 
a fine fowling-piece, and said, ' I must have 
this!' 

" Cowering before the robber, the trembling 
Turk replied, ' Don't take that ! I love to shoot 
birds, and shall not be able to get another gun 
so good as that. Don't take it! You will 
make me miserable if you do.' 

"The robber laughed at this craven speech, 



74 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

and, finding the gun was loaded, cast a look of 
scorn on the Turk, and replied, * Coward ! Your 
gun is loaded, and you did not dare to shoot 
me.' Thus saying, he took the gun and proudly 
went his way." 

" That story is hard on the Turk," said Kon- 
ald, laughing, "and it helps to prove, what I 
have often heard lately, that the Turk must go." 

"And so must we," added the doctor. 
"We've many little matters to see to to-night, 
if we mean to start to-morrow." 

At this hint from the doctor our party 
turned toward the street on which they had 
lodged so comfortably, and finished their prep- 
arations for an early start on the following 
morning. 

"Did you ever know an Oriental ready to 
move at an appointed hour?" asked the doctor, 
somewhat querulously, the next morning, when 
he found that neither Hassan nor his muleteer 
appeared at the time fixed on the night before. 

"One who travels in Asia needs much pa- 
tience," pleasantly replied the professor. 



Last Days in Aleppo. V5 

"Here comes Hassan the unready," cried 
Eonald, half an hour later, when he descried 
the sheikh approaching, mounted on his camel, 
and armed with his lance. 

A little more delay, and then the mules 
started ahead with the baggage and servants. 
Shortly after the sheikh moved off on his 
camel. After him rode the doctor, with Rich- 
ard, on his lively pony, by his side. The pro-° 
fessor and Eonald brought up the rear. Their 
friends at the consul's office waved them 
adieus, and thus our party started on the road 
leading to the great river Euphrates. 



76 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE WATER OF DESIRE. 

OUR travelers did not find their ride very 
agreeable after leaving Aleppo. The wind 
'was blowing sharply from the north, and was so 
piercingly cold that, though well provided with 
wraps, they were very uncomfortable. The 
boys' teeth fairly chattered. Had the road 
been good and dry they might have gained 
some warmth by rapid riding. But this was 
out of the question, since it was scarcely possi- 
ble to ride fast across such a hilly country, and 
on a road covered as theirs was with loose 
stones. Nor was their riding greatly improved 
after reaching level ground, as they did not 
long after noon. Recent rains had almost 
flooded the plain, and they were glad to quit 
their saddles and rest awhile on reaching a 
wretched little village, named Jabul, standing 



The Water of Desire. 77 

near the border of the desert which they were 
now approaching. 

There was no khan in this filthy hamlet, and 
they were compelled to eat their lunch in a mis- 
erable little hut about eight or ten feet square. 
With food they were well provided, since the 
doctor, who, as you know, was a veteran trav- 
eler, had taken care to bring a plentiful supply € 
of bread and cold chicken from Aleppo. But 
the hovel in which they had to eat was so 
extremely dirty that, had not their appetites 
been sharpened by the morning's journey, they 
would have been too much disgusted to eat. 
As usual Master Richard was forward to put 
his annoyances into words, saying, while trying 
to arrange one of the tattered cushions, which 
was the Oriental substitute for chairs ,: 

"Faugh! This shanty isn't fit for a dog- 
kennel. It hasn't any floor, and this rotten bit 
of carpet, spread on the bare ground, is black 
with dirt. The wind drives madly through 
that hole in the wall which lets in the light, but 
has no window, and that bit of bagging hung 



78 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

in the door-way flaps about like the sail of 
a boat. If this isn't roughing it, I don't know 
what is." 

"Pshaw, Dick! don't be so fretful," re- 
sponded Eonald, " but put your teeth into a bit 
of this nice chicken. This isn't a palace, to be 
sure, but it's better to be here than to sit out in 
the cold. And that hole lets in the air, and so 
prevents this room from stifling us with its 
many unsavory smells. And, if you will call 
that bit of bagging which hangs in the door- 
way a portiere curtain, and these old cushions 
divans, things wont look so bad to you. Any 
way, I think it's better to laugh and to eat one's 
luncheon than it is to growl and stay hungry." 

" Pretty well put, Ronald," said the pro- 
fessor, laughing. 

The doctor also laughed, and said : " Perhaps 
Richard will learn before he gets back to Bos- 
ton that, as the proverb says, ' Half an egg is 
better than an empty shell.' " 

Richard looked cross, but made no reply. 
The sight of the cold chicken then drew him 



The Water of Desire. 79 

toward the lunch-basket, and the pleasure of 
eating soon lessened his foolish displeasure with 
the hut. 

The luncheon disposed of, they began to pre- 
pare for a fresh start, so that they might reach 
their next halting-place before sunset, when a 
piercing scream caused them to start. The doc- 
tor snatched his fowling-piece from the corner 
where he had placed it, and, pushing aside the 
bit of bagging in the door-way, stepped outside, 
and was followed by his companions. There he 
saw a young girl running, in great fear, from a 
yard in which a flock of sheep was folded. 
Looking toward the yard he saw a hungry look- 
ing wolf prowling round the sheep-yard, as if 
seeking a way of entrance into it. Moved by 
the instinct of a hunter, the doctor crept round 
an intervening hut with his weapon lowered. 
Yery soon he fired. The wolf howled, and fled, 
it being only wounded, but not killed. The 
noise of the shot-gun drew the fellaheen of the 
village from their huts. They seemed to regret 
that the wolf had escaped, because, as they told 



80 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

the doctor, they were very much annoyed in 
cold weather by the wolves which came down 
from the mountains in search of prey. 

Eiding in advance of their attendants, and 
guided by Hassan on his camel, our party, after 
passing over a few miles of rough, stony road, 
or caravan-track, came to a perfectly level 
plain. 

" This is fine ! " exclaimed Richard, as they 
rode on to this stoneless plain, green with a 
light growth of grass. " Come, let us have a 
gallop." 

"Take care," replied the doctor; "it is not 
quite safe to gallop here." 

" Why not, sir ? " asked the positive lad. " I 
see nothing but long lines of mole-tracks. 
They wont hinder us, will they ? " 

"No, the mole-tracks are not very trouble- 
some to sure-footed horses ; but the holes of the 
little jerboa may throw them. See, there's one 
of the little rodents now peeping out of his 
hole." 

But before the doctor had ceased speaking, 



The Water of Desire. 81 

the jerboa had withdrawn himself from view. 
Riding up to the place of his appearance, they 
saw that the holes of these animals were in clus- 
ters. A galloping horse crushing through them 
might easily stumble. 

" These jerboas are curious little creatures. 
They belong to the opossum family," said the 
professor, as the party rode on. " Their hind 
legs are remarkably long, altogether out of pro- 
portion to their fore ones." 

Carefully avoiding the numerous holes of 
these animals, they traversed the plain several 
miles until they arrived at a mound on the edge 
of the desert. Here they found a group of 
tents pitched so as to form a square. They be- 
longed to the Hannady, a tribe of Arabs who 
were shepherds dwelling in tents, and having 
several flocks of sheep under their care. 

The doctor drew his reins in front of the 
sheikh's tent, as also did his companions. Hassan 
explained to the sheikh the wish of his party to 
pitch their tents in his neighborhood for the 
night. A liberal hachshees/i or gift made him 



82 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

perfectly willing to entertain them as best he 
could. They dismounted, therefore, and teth- 
ered their horses. While waiting the arrival 
of their tents and baggage, they were invited 
by the sheikh to sit within the door of his tent, 
which, like most Arab tents, was made of dark 
cloth woven from the hair of goats or camels. 

The boy surveyed the interior of the tent 
with eager interest. It was large and ap^ 
parently comfortable, plentifully supplied with 
rugs and cushions. Empty wheat-bags were 
piled round the tent poles, and the pack-saddles 
of the camels were placed so as to be readily 
used as seats and lounging-places. 

After sitting on these saddles awhile listen- 
ing to the doctor's talk in Arabic with the 
sheikh, they heard voices and laughter from 
parties apparently behind a curtain of goat's 
hair which divided the tent into two parts. 
The boys looked surprised, and Ronald, turning 
toward the doctor, asked : 

" "Who has the sheikh got behind that curtain, 
doctor \ " 



The "Water of Desire. 83 

"The women's apartment, called the harem, 
is behind the curtain," replied the doctor. 
" This part of the tent is for the sheikh and his 
sons. But I hear voices outside; I guess our 
baggage has arrived." 

Quitting the tent our party found that 
Hassan was giving directions to the servants 
.and muleteers respecting the tent. He had 
already selected a suitable spot. Our boy trav- 
elers, who had never until that day seen an 
Arab tent, watched the proceedings of the men 
with curious eyes. It took but a short time 
to remove the tent covering and poles from the 
backs of the mules which had carried them. 
Three poles were then inserted in a row in 
holes dug with a crowbar. As their tent was a 
double one, a second line of posts was put in 
at a suitable distance from the first. The cov- 
ering, made not of goat's hair, but of cotton, 
was then stretched horizontally over the tops of 
the poles, and fastened very much as our um- 
brella-cloth is fitted to the stick. Loops were 
attached to the inside of the covering. Ropes 



84 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

were fixed to these loops and fastened to pegs 
driven into the ground. It took considerable 
time to pitch this tent, but when it was done, 
and their baggage placed within its curtains, 
the boys went into it, and sitting upon camp- 
stools, with which it was furnished, looked 
round with expressions of satisfaction in their 



" Well," said Richard, " I like this. It is ten 
thousand times better than the hut we had to 
eat lunch in to-day. I don't wonder the Arabs 
like to live in tents." 

Ronald thought tent-life might be pleasant 
for a little while, but not for a life-time. " You 
know," said he, " that though we enjoyed living 
in our tent the last time we were in the woods 
of Maine, we were mighty glad to get back to 
our home in Boston when the weather grew 
cool toward the fall." 

" That was so," replied his brother ; " yet 
these Arabs seem to like it, for they have stuck 
to it ever since the times of Ishmael, the father 
of their race." 



The Water of Desire. 85 

"Konald, who was the first dweller in tents?" 
asked the professor. 

Without pausing to reflect, the lad replied, 
" Why, Adam, I suppose. Didn't men have to 
live in tents before they knew how to build 
houses ? " 

" But where did they get the cloth to cover 
them?" 

" I suppose they covered them with the skins 
of beasts," replied Eonald, and then, as if sud- 
denly recollecting himself, he added, " Why, 
Iio. r stupid I am! The Bible says that ' Jabal 
was the father of such as dwell in tents and 
have cattle.' I see it now. Jabal lived in a 
tent because he was a shepherd, and had to 
move his flocks from place to place to find 
pasture, just as these Arabs do. Wasn't that so, 
professor ? " 

" No doubt it was. The first houses of men 

must have been in caves ; the next in huts and 

houses made of the branches of trees plastered 

with mud, or built with mud walls, such as we 

saw to-day. But shepherds in hot countries 
6 



86 Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

naturally become nomads or wanderers from 
place to place. As you know, not all the Arabs 
are nomads. Some of their tribes dwell in 
cities ; and in some periods of their history have 
been skillful, learned, and powerful. But the 
tribes which have lived in the desert of Arabia 
as breeders of horses, camels, sheep, and goats, 
have found life in tents better suited to their 
business, and their descendants prefer it to life 
in ceiled houses." 

" But do not some tents cost as much as a rich 
man's fine house ? " inquired Konald. " I think 
I have read of such tents, somewhere." 

" Certainly, it is possible to spend even a for- 
tune on a tent and its fixings," replied the pro- 
fessor. " Powerful chiefs and princes have 
often spent much money on fine tents. His- 
tory tells of a Persian king whose tent was 
called the ' golden house,' because it glittered 
within and without with gold, and is said to 
have cost the immense, almost fabulous, sum of 
ten millions of dollars. We shall see some 
tents in this desert much better than others? 



The Water of Desire. 87 

but not one that will compare in any degree 
with that golden house of the rich Persian 
monarch." 

Their cook and servants now interrupted this 
conversation by bringing in their supper. It 
consisted in part of the coffee and cold meats 
they had brought from Aleppo, and partly of 
Arab bread with the milk of camels. This 
milk was obtained from the sheikh. They rel- 
ished it exceedingly. The doctor said it was 
very nourishing. Their ride and the desert 
air had given them appetites which the pro- 
fessor insisted were "fairly ravenous." After 
eating, they read the story of Hagar and Ish- 
mael, and then prayed to Hagar's God. After 
this truly Christian service they wrapped them- 
selves in warm rugs, laid themselves down on 
bits of carpet with cushions for pillows, and 
slept perhaps more sweetly than many whose 
couches were filled with eider-down and sur- 
rounded with costly and beautiful objects of 
art. 

The night was cold, and the servants, not 



88 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

being in so warm a tent as our travelers, were 
tip early the next morning, making coffee and 
getting breakfast ready. After eating this 
meal, our travelers mounted their steeds and 
rode toward the great river Euphrates, near 
which they expected to encamp in the even- 
ing of that day. 

They were now fairly in the desert, beyond 
the sandy plain in which the mole and jerboa 
burrowed, and on ground which was green as 
emerald, dotted with wild flowers, and smooth as 
a race-course. The air w T as fresh and invigorat- 
ing. The very beasts seemed to enjoy it. The 
boys were in high spirits. They cantered their 
ponies over the ground, merrily laughing and 
shouting to one another. At noon, when they 
halted near an Arab camp to water their horses 
and to eat luncheon, they declared that they 
had enjoyed more fun that morning than at any 
time since leaving Boston. 

Their afternoon ride, though still a delight, 
did not excite them so highly. They were a 
little w r earied through being as yet unused to 



The Water of Desire. 89 

much riding, and quietly trotted their ponies a 
little behind Hassan's camel. 

Toward the middle of the afternoon they 
were startled by seeing Hassan pointing toward 
the south-east, and hearing him shout, " Morad 
Sou / Morad Sou ! " 

" What does he say, doctor \ " asked the boys, 
riding close to that gentleman's side. 

"He says Morad Sou! which signifies the 
water of Desire or of Longing. This is what 
the Arabs call the Euphrates, of which great 
river he has just caught a glimpse." 

" I see it ! I see it winding about away off in 
yonder valley," cried Ronald. 

Looking eastward they all caught glimpses of 
the great river Euphrates winding between its 
green banks like a band of silver. 

" That stream," said the doctor, " is some- 
times called the noblest river in Asia." 

A mile or two beyond the point from which 
they caught their first view of the Euphrates, 
they lighted upon a small Arab camp. As they 
rode toward it, they saw the sheikh standing in 



90 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

the door of his tent, as if waiting for their ap- 
proach. His aspect to the eyes of our boy travel- 
ers was that of a wild man ; they gazed with feel- 
ings of wonder mixed with fear at his swarthy 
sun-burnt face, his dark, deep-set piercing eyes, 
his long, black locks straggling from beneath his 
turban, and his restless movements as he con- 
versed with Hassan. After a few minutes the 
latter beckoned them to approach the tent. 
The sheikh met them courteously enough, and 
invited them into his tent to await the coming 
up of their little caravan of attendants. 

After their own tent was ready to receive 
them they gladly entered it, and found it a very 
agreeable relief, after their long ride in their 
saddles, to lie down upon their rugs and cush- 
ions. Kichard, upon whom the sheikh's black 
eyes had riveted with a snake-like fascination, 
had scarcely put himself into a restful position 
before he exclaimed : 

" Ronnie ! did you ever see such a wicked 
looking eye as that old sheikh has in his head ? 
It positively made me shiver to look at him ; he 



The Water of Desire. 91 

actually made me think that he might be one of 
the forty thieves we read about in the ' Arabian 
Nights.' " 

Ronald laughed at the last supposition and 
replied: "1 didn't think of the forty thieves 
when I looked into those eyes, which seemed to 
look right through a fellow ; but I did think of 
that verse we read in our tent last night which 
told us that the angel said of Ishmael, ' He will 
be a wild man ; his hand will be against every 
man, and every man's hand against him.' There 
is such a wild look about that Arab, that I 
shouldn't like to meet him alone out in the 
desert." 

" Perhaps it would not be quite safe to meet 
him thus, particularly if he thought you had 
money or jewels in your pockets," said the 
doctor, laughing ; " but you need not be afraid 
that he will disturb us. Like most Arabs he may 
be a thief at heart, but we have made peace with 
him through Hassan, who is of his tribe. His 
face is not as pleasant as it might be. Hassan 
told me that he was robbed of a favorite camel 



92 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

a few nights since by some Arabs of another 
tribe, and that he is still smarting under his 
loss. Probably that made him look so very 
much like a wild man to-day. But his race is 
wild and restless, as the angel prophesied to 
Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, it would be. 
Find the Arab where you may, whether in 
Africa ; in the desert of Sinai, known as Bocky 
Arabia ; in Arabia Felix, which poets call Arabia 
the Blest, or in Arabia Deserta, in the northern 
part of which we now are, and you will find 
him, as far as he dares to be, a wild man with 
an armed hand ready to strike all but his own 
tribe; and not a man in whom it is safe to 
place implicit confidence." 

The entrance of their attendants with their 
supper put a sudden end to this conversation. 
The eagerness of their appetites inspired them 
for the moment with more interest in the breast 
of a roasted bird than in an army of Arabs. 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 93 



CHAPTER Y. 

ON THE BANKS OF THE EUPHEATES. 

THE sheikh, near whose camp our party had 
pitched their tent, showed them unexpected 
hospitality the next morning, when he invited 
them to a repast in his tent. They found him 
and his two sons, with three boys, his grand- 
sons, between six and twelve years old, making 
preparation for the morning meal. His tawny 
face was no longer wild as when they first saw 
him standing at the door of his tent, but calm 
and even placid, as befitted even a chief about 
to act the part of ahospitable host to a party of 
strangers from a far-off land. As they learned 
afterward some of his men had recovered the 
stolen camel, and this good luck had made him 
cheerful. When they passed within the door or 
curtain of his tent he rose from the carpet, 
whereon he sat, to give them a friendly greeting. 



94 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Placing Lis hand upon his heart, and bowing, he 
said in Arabic, " Good-day ! " Had they been 
strangers of his own race and religion he would 
have said, " Sdlam aleikum" or "Peace be 
with you." To this the person saluted would 
have replied, " Aleihum effalam" or "With 
you be peace ! " But seeing they were for-' 
eigners, and not Mohammedans, he only, as 
was the Arab custom in such cases, wished 
them a good-day. 

Seating themselves on the carpet, our trav- 
elers looked with curious interest on what was 
going forward. Seeing smoke issuing from the 
top of the curtain which hung in front of the 
harem, hearing the chatter and titter of female 
voices behind it, and smelling the odor of boil- 
ing meat, they concluded that the wives of the 
sheikh and his sons were cooking breakfast. 
The sheikh also busied himself pounding coffee 
in a mortar, which, the doctor informed the 
boys, in answer to their inquiries, was the Arab 
fashion. 

"But why don't they grind it?" asked 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 95 

Ronald. "Couldn't they buy coffee-mills in 
Aleppo?" 

"Most likely they could, but they prefer 
pounding the berry. And some European 
travelers — Niebuhr among them — after drink- 
ing coffee prepared both ways, have thought it 
more aromatic and refreshing when macerated 
in a mortar than when ground in a mill, after 
our custom." 

Our Boston boys watched the actions of the 
three young Arabs, who, in their turn, were 
casting furtive glances at them. Not knowing 
Arabic, they could not speak to one another. 
What they thought of the grave little Arabs we 
shall, perhaps, learn hereafter. 

When the food was brought in Ronald and 
Richard were more puzzled than pleased. It 
was boiled mutton, chopped into shapeless bits 
of various sizes, and served up on a very large 
wooden platter, which was placed, not on a table, 
of which the tent was destitute, but on the car- 
pet near the spot where the sheikh and his 
guests sat. Cakes of half-baked bread studded 



96 Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

the edge of the dish which held the meat. Before 
giving the sign to begin eating, the sheikh, who 
was a very devout Mohammedan, rose up, bowed 
his head, and said, not without seriousness, " In 
the name of the most merciful God ! " 

This was his " grace before meat." It was 
no sooner said than, after pushing up his flowing 
sleeves, and sitting down, he leaned toward the 
smoking dish, and taking a lump of the greasy, 
unsavory mutton from the dish with his fingers, 
began eating voraciously. The doctor told the 
boys and his brother that they were expected to 
follow his example. It was not their way of 
eating, and the boys hesitated until, seeing their 
tutor and the doctor doing their best to comply 
with' Arab customs, they picked out as dainty a 
bit of the meat and as fair a cake of bread as 
they could see, and began eating, but not be- 
fore Richard had said : 

" Well, I s'pose we must try, because, as the 
proverb says, * When one is in Rome one must 
do as Rome does.' " 

The mutton was tough, unsalted, and un- 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 97 

savory. The bread was made of millet mixed 
with camel's milk and oil. It was little else 
than dough, slightly browned on the bottom, but 
not half-cooked through. The sheikh and his 
sons, with their boys, devoured it in hot haste, 
as the Arabs of the desert are wont to do, and, 
fortunately, before our travelers, after much 
effort to overcome their disgust, had made out 
to swallow their first mouthful, the dish was 
empty. Then the Arabs rose to their feet. The 
sheikh bowed and said, " God be praised ! " 
Water was next passed round, and then a small 
cup of coffee, without milk or sugar, was handed 
to each one present. 

"Bah!" exclaimed Eichard, as soon as he 
found himself with his friends inside their own 
tent. "That breakfast was scarcely fit to 
give a tramp! It makes me sick to think 
of those Arabs dipping their fingers into the 
dish they expected us to eat from. I couldn't 
eat either the mutton or the dough, though I was 
as hungry as a hunter." 

The doctor laughed, but comforted the crest- 



98 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

fallen lads by telling them that they had learned 
a lesson about the habits of a Bedouin of the 
desert in such a way that it would stick to them 
as long as they lived. And he added : " Know- 
ing what to expect, before accepting the sheikh's 
invitation, I had ordered our own cook to pro- 
vide us a breakfast, which we will now proceed 
to eat." 

After refreshing themselves from their own 
stores our travelers, leaving their servants to 
strike the tent and follow with the baggage, 
mounted their horses and started for the banks 
of the Euphrates. 

As they rode leisurely over the smooth soil of 
the desert, Ronald, who was next the doctor, 
after some remarks about the sheikh's tent, ex- 
claimed : " What sober-faced fellows those little 
Arab boys are ! They look as if they hadn't 
any fun in them, as American boys of their 
age have. They are boy-men." 

"That's because they are taught to act like 
men while they are as yet but little children," 
replied the professor. " Niebuhr says, ' the 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 99 

Arabs are never children,' by which he means 
that, although they lead a frolicsome life in the 
harem with the women until they are five or six 
years old, yet at that tender age they are taken 
from the care of their mothers and made to pass 
their days in the company of their fathers. 
Hence, hearing nothing but men's talk about 
camels, horses, and other affairs of the camp and 
tribe, they soon lose the lively spirits of children 
and become pensive, if not sad, in appearance, 
though perhaps not in reality, because Arabs 
are vivacious after a fashion of their own." 

" But don't they have any sports ? " asked 
Richard. 

"JSot among these northern tribes, who regard 
music and dancing as highly improper. The 
girls are not allowed to meet with the boys. 
The games of American boys are unknown 
among them ; hence they know nothing of the 
sports of our country. But among the more 
southern tribes and in cities Arab boys some- 
times leap and dance, with arms in their hands, 
to the beating of small drums. Yet, in the main, 



100 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

all Arab boys become men in their feelings, 
looks, and actions, while they ought to be either 
in the nursery or at school." 

" Poor fellows ! " exclaimed Konald. " I'm 
glad I wasn't born in Arabia." 

" That is, indeed, a very proper feeling," re- 
plied Professor Benedict. " Yet there is one 
Arab virtue which even a Boston boy may 
properly emulate." 

" What is that, sir ? " inquired both lads, 
speaking simultaneously. 

"Temperance," replied their tutor, "Arabs 
do not touch strong drink." 

" Neither do we, sir ; we are teetotalers, you 
know," rejoined Ronald. 

"Yes, I know; and I believe you are true 
boys who will never break that important pledge. 
Though you are not Arabs, yet in that virtue 
you will, I trust, always resemble them. But 
their virtue is shaded by a vice. They smoke 
hasheesh, made from a species of hemp. It ex- 
cites them very highly, and sometimes inclines 
them to fight." 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 101 

This conversation was broken off by their 
arrival at the edge of the plain from which they 
obtained their first full view of the beautiful 
vale through which the Euphrates flows. The 
plain terminated in a rocky ledge which was 
about one hundred and fifty feet above the level 
of the river. As our travelers looked down 
upon the broad valley which stretched away 
some five miles to a corresponding ledge of 
rocks on the opposite side, they were filled with 
delight at the unexpected loveliness of the 
scene. The grass of the meadow, through which 
the winding river flowed like a band of molten 
silver, was green as emerald. "Willows, date- 
trees, tamarisks, fringed its banks at intervals. 
Numerous flocks of sheep were quietly grazing, 
guarded by their Arab shepherds, whose tents 
dotted the landscape, beneath the high banks 
which inclose the valley. And, as if intended to 
prevent the scene from being monotonous, the 
lacquered dome of a mosque rose here and there 
above the clumps of the willows, as did also the 

broken pillars still standing among the ruins of 

7 



102 Boy Travelers m Arabia. 

buildings erected in the ancient days when the 
valley was crowded with inhabitants. 

" Well ! " exclaimed Eichard. " I don't be- 
lieve that one of our Boston High School 
boys ever dreamed that such a glorious sight 
as this could be found in Arabia. Do you, 
Konald?" 

" Not they, indeed ! Our fellows all laughed 
at me when I told them I was going to Arabia. 
Some of them were impolite enough to suggest 
that none but fools would expect to find any 
thing beautiful in the Arabian desert. They 
thought it contained nothing but sand and rob- 
bers. But here is a something quite as lovely 
as any thing we have in America." 

Our travelers, after slowly descending the 
ravine to the foot of the ledge, found them- 
selves not far from the stream, which, by means 
of a sudden bend in its bed at this point, which 
is named Belis, flowed quite close to its wall 
of rocks. Here the great river appeared to 
be about twelve hundred feet wide and deep 
enough to be navigated by large vessels. As 



On the Banks of the Ettphkates. 103 

they halted awhile near its shore, the professor 
turned to his pupils, and said : 

" Let me test you in your geography a little, 
young gentlemen. How far is it from Belis, 
where we now are, to the Persian Gulf, into 
which this noble stream empties its waters ? " 

" That is scarcely a fair question, sir," replied 
Ronald, with a smile ; " because Belis is such an 
unimportant place that one would scarcely think 
of making it a point from which to measure the 
length of a river." 

"Your objection is very well taken, Master 
Ronald, though Belis has been named as the 
probable future landing-place for steam-ships. 
It is a thousand miles from this spot to the 
mouth of this historic stream. But can you tell 
the entire length of the Euphrates ? " 

"I think it is about one thousand four hun- 
dred miles, sir," replied Richard. 

Ronald's apparent hesitation had led his 
brother to give this answer. But he now said : 
" You are right, Dick, and it rises in Armenia, 
not very far from Lake Yan; works its way, 



104 Boy Traveleks in Arabia. 

with many bends and turns, through the mount- 
ains of Taurus and Anti-Taurus, until, after 
many a leap, by which it forms splendid cata- 
racts, it finds its way into this noble valley, 
passes through Arabia Deserta, weds itself to 
the Tigris, and finally finishes its course as a 
river in the Persian Gulf." 

" Pretty well put, Master .Ronald ; but what 
is that?" 

The sharp report of a fowling-piece, which 
was repeated in decided echoes from the rocky 
cliff, had caused the professor's sudden start and 
question. Looking in the direction of the sound, 
a little puff of smoke directed their attention to 
the doctor, who, attracted by the sight of a bird, 
had quietly moved away toward a clump of 
trees. They soon saw him coming toward them, 
holding a dead woodcock in his hand, the trophy 
of his skill as a sportsman. 

The boys who, though bred in the city of 
Boston, bad acquired no mean acquaintance 
with the arts of the hunter and sportsman by 
spending two summers in the forests of Maine, 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 105 

were delighted at this evidence of the presence 
of game in the jungles of the Euphrates. And 
when the doctor told them that woodcocks, 
rock-pigeons, and a species of pheasant called 
francolins were numerous, Kichard turned to- 
ward his brother, and exclaimed : 

u That's good news ! We shall get some fun 
out of our ride down this valley. I'll get my 
gun out presently, when the fellows overtake us 
with our baggage." 

" And what will be better than the fun, Dick, 
will be the game-suppers we shall get out of our 
hunting, 5 ' added Ronald, in gleeful anticipation 
of eating some nicely cooked birds in their tent 
in the evening. 

Guided by Hassan, they now rode down the 
valley to the neighborhood of a group of huts 
occupied by some poor Arabs, where they were 
to bivouac for luncheon. While awaiting the 
arrival of their baggage the boys proposed to 
accompany the doctor into a thick jungle of 
tamarisks in search of game. Learning their 
purpose from the doctor, Hassan cautioned them 



106 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

not to venture far into the woods without their 
guns, because of the lions, which sometimes 
made their lairs in the jungle. 

" Lions ! " exclaimed Eonald. "What ! are we 
near the dens of those lords of the forest? " 

The doctor said those beasts were certainly in 
the neighborhood, but were not likely to appear 
in the day-time, though when driven by hunger 
they had been known to attack and devour a 
stray mule or to seize an unprotected child by 
daylight. He thought it best, therefore, for the 
boys to keep out of the jungle until their guns 
arrived. As for himself, he was not apprehen- 
sive, and would go alone, hoping to bag game 
enough for their luncheon. 

" I agree to that, sir," said Eonald, laughing ; 
"because I very much prefer eating some of the 
woodcock you may shoot, to being myself eaten 
by a hungry lion." 

Dr. Benedict found the birds very numerous, 
and returned in less than an hour with wood- 
cocks and pigeons sufficient for what Richard 
inelegantly said would be "a good square meal." 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 107 

These were given to their cook to keep for their 
supper that evening. For luncheon that worthy 
furnished them witli bread and cold mutton, with 
some buffalo's milk which he purchased from a 
party of Arabs encamped near the spot of their 
noontide bivouac. 

After luncheon they spent some time in ram- 
bling about, and seeking the best points from 
which to view the various objects which studded 
the valley. While thus engaged Eonald turned 
to the professor, and asked : 

" Is that a big wheel I see yonder rising out 
of the water?" 

" Most likely it is one of the old water-wheels 
with which the Arabs, who make their homes 
here, irrigate their fields in the summer season. 
Let us go and examine it." 

Following their tutor, the boys passed through 
a broad opening in the jungle to the river's 
edge. There they found a half -ruined aqueduct 
supported on Gothic arches. Beyond the aque- 
duct they saw walls with parapets built out into 
the stream sufficiently far to direct its current 



108 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

toward a huge wheel at the end of the aque- 
duct. 

" What a clumsy old wheel that is ! " ex- 
claimed Richard. " I'm sure no Yankee would 
make such a bungling affair as that." 

"I guess not," replied Ronald; "but what are 
those red things fastened to its arms? Let us go 
and see, Dick." 

" Be careful, boys," said the professor, as the 
lads started away. " My opinion is that this an- 
cient aqueduct is in too crumbling a condition 
to be walked on." 

" We'll try it any how," retorted Richard. 

The professor's opinion proved to be correct, 
as the boys found when, after moving a short 
distance, they fell into a heap of bricks which 
gave away beneath their feet. 

" Let us get out of this tumble-down concern 
as quick as we can," said Richard, looking up 
with a very wry face as he rubbed his bruised 
shins. 

Ronald, who also found his footsteps some- 
what uncertain, quickly and laughingly replied: 



On the Banks of the Euphrates. 109 

"I agree to that; though if I had been here live 
hundred years ago, I think I could have walked 
out to that wheel without a fall. It was strong 
enough then to bear an elephant, I should say, 
from the look of it. Poor old aqueduct ! Like 
th. "3 valley, it has seen its best days." 

Returning to the spot where the professor 
stood patiently waiting their return, Ronald 
said : " You were correct, sir, and we came near 
getting a bad tumble. The aqueduct is crum- 
bling into ruins. It could not stand such heavy 
weights as we are." 

" It is just as well, boys. My field-glass an- 
swers your question about those red things on 
the wheel. They are earthen vessels, with 
which the water is raised to the mouth of the 
aqueduct when the current turns the wheel — 
but the doctor is calling us. Let us hurry up 
and begin our afternoon journey." 



110 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTEK VI. 
JOINING AN ARAB CAMP. 

RESUMING their journey, after their noon 
rest, they rode at a moderate pace along the 
caravan road, which, in some places, owing to 
the near approach of the winding river to its 
wall of rocks, ran here and there up ravines, 
to the plain and down again to the valley be- 
low. These occasional ascents led them to 
notice certain signs of the former existence of 
cities near the edge of the desert, and Professor 
Benedict remarked: 

" From what we can see of the valley, and of 
these fragments of ancient buildings above it, I 
incline to think that when this region was filled 
with inhabitants, the valley was devoted to 
agriculture, and its cities stood on this high 
ground. 

The professor was probably correct in this 



Joining an Arab Camp. Ill 

opinion, though, from the ruinous towers visi- 
ble on the river banks, the doctor surmised that 
fortified posts once stood in the vale, and that 
villages for husbandmen were scattered here 
and there along the lowlands. Talking of these 
matters they rode leisurely along until, toward 
evening, they stopped for the night close to a 
group of mud-walled huts occupied by a num- 
ber of Arab families belonging to an infe- 
rior tribe, and following the business of shep- 
herds. As soon as their tent was pitched, and 
their food prepared, they sat down to eat 
supper. 

" This is what I call good eating ! " exclaimed 
Richard, after picking the bones of a woodcock 
clean. 

" So say I," added Eonald. " This supper is 
equal to any thing a fellow could expect to 
find on the table of the Hotel Brunswick, in 
Boston." 

" Yes ; the doctor's game-bag has done us 
good service to-day, though I surmise that we 
are somewhat indebted to the cool air, and to 



112 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

our day's ride, for our appetites," observed the 
professor. 

" That's so," replied Richard ; " but don't we 
owe something to our cook, also? I don't see 
how the fellow made out to cook this nice 
supper with no kitchen except his little tent, 
and his fire on the ground; but who is this 
peeping into our tent?" 

The question called the attention of the party 
to a turbaned head which appeared at the tent- 
door. The doctor rose at once from his camp- 
stool, and held a conversation with the stranger. 

"He is a snake-charmer," said the doctor, 
after a brief conversation with the dark-faced 
Arab. " He wants to give us a specimen of 
his skill." 

" O, do let him ! " exclaimed Richard. 

Ronald expressed the same wish. The doc- 
tor invited the man into the tent. Having 
called his son, a bright-looking boy, not more 
than eight years old, the Arab entered the tent 
bearing a bag which held a number of venom- 
ous snakes. Hassan, with the sheikh of the 



Joining an Arab Camp. 113 

village, the cook, and the attendants of our 
party, gathered about the entrance of the tent 
to witness the performance. 

Opening the mouth of his bag, the Arab 
pulled out a number of snakes which had 
twisted themselves into a tight knot. 

" Their bite is deadly," said Hassan, in reply 
to a question asked by the doctor. 

Being told this, the boys felt a thrill of terror 
when they saw the little snake-charmer take the 
venomous creatures from his father's hands, 
place them in his naked bosom, and suffer them 
to twine about his neck and arms. Hassan and 
the other Arabs gazed on the spectacle with 
wonder and fear. Presently one of the snakes 
bit the boy. The blood flowed. Then the 
boy's father, pretending to be very angry, seized 
the offending snake, bit off its head, and dashed 
its writhing body into the midst of the Arab 
group at the tent -door. 

Then Hassan and the other sheikh cursed 
the snake-charmer in fearful language, declar- 
ing that he was in league with the spirit of evil. 



114 Boy Travelers m Arabia. 

Thinking that the spectators might be in doubt 
as to the really deadly nature of his snakes, the 
fellow offered to repeat his disgusting act with 
any snake that they might bring him. But the 
doctor, handing him a gift, dismissed him, say- 
ing: 

"That will do! that will do! Good-day to 
you!" 

The man and his boy left the tent with many 
thanks for the doctor's liberal backsheesh. Re- 
plying to Ronald's inquiry, whether the snakes 
were poisonous or not, Doctor Benedict said : 

" They are venomous by nature, no doubt, but 
he had most likely rendered them harmless by 
drawing their teeth." 

" Yet he offered to repeat his trick with any 
snake brought to him," objected Ronald. 

ft True, my dear boy, but that was mere bra- 
vado. It was a very safe offer. He was quite 
sure that none would be brought to him." 

Our boy travelers slept the sound sleep of 
healthful weariness that night in their comforta- 
ble tent. They were awaked early next morn- 



Joining an Akab Camp. 115 

ing by the doctor, for the purpose of trying 
their skill as sportsmen in a jungle or forest of 
tamarisk-trees, which was at no great distance 
from the huts of the Arabs. Taking their guns 
and one of their attendants, to whom the doctor 
handed a rifle to carry, lest, as he said, they 
might meet with a lion, a wild boar, or a wolf, 
they soon entered the jungle. The boys were 
surprised to hear the noisy chattering of mag- 
pies, the loud cawing of rooks, the rolling note 
of the blackbird, the trill of the nightingale, the 
whir of the pheasant, and once, when near a 
dense thicket, the whine of a jackal. Game 
was plenty and by no means timid. They were 
good marksmen, and soon filled their bags with 
woodcocks, pigeons, francolins, and ducks. 
They enjoyed the sport exceedingly, albeit Ron- 
ald was a little nervous lest a lion should hap- 
pen to cross their path. Once, when a gust of 
wind moaned through the jungle, he exclaimed : 

"Hark, doctor, wasn't that the roar of a 
lion?" 

" Not exactly," said the doctor, smiling at his 



116 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

needless fear. " It was the voice of the wind 
you heard. As I told you once before, the lions 
of the Euphrates are not very dangerous. With 
my good rifle I should not fear meeting one of 
them. Lady Blunt, in her book of travels in 
this valley, tells of an Arab, however, who one 
evening shot at one with his pistol for mere 
amusement. The creature growled and scam- 
pered away. The man rode on a little behind 
the rest of the party. Toward dusk his com- 
panions heard a shriek, and then missed this 
man, whose name was Bozan. Afraid to search 
for him in the gathering gloom, they galloped 
away. The next morning they found his man- 
gled body about fifty yards within the jungle. 
Had he let the lion alone, it is probable that the 
creature would not have followed him." 

" Well," replied Ronald, " if lions hereabouts 
are not very savage, yet the fate of Bozan 
teaches us that it wont do to trifle with them." 

After traveling without any marked advent- 
ure some four or five days, they arrived at a 
considerable Arab village, named Deyr, where 



Joining an Arab Camp. 117 

they spent a quiet Sabbath, mostly in their 
tents, in which they very properly held a relig- 
ious service, at which the professor read those 
interesting portions of Scripture which relate to 
the great nations that anciently flourished near 
the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. 

" I wonder whether we are near the river of 
Chebar w T here, as you just read, Ezekiel found 
the captive Jews whom King Shalmaneser car- 
ried away from Samaria ? " 

To this inquiry by Ronald the professor re- 
plied : " Yes ; some twenty or twenty-five miles 
farther down the river, the Khabour empties its 
waters into the Euphrates. The Khabour of 
to-day is the Chebar of Ezekiel and the Habor 
of the author of the Book of Kings. It was 
there that the prophet says, ' As I was among 
the captives the heavens opened, and I saw 
visions of God.' " 

"It makes me feel strangely," said Richard, 
"when I think that I am so near the spot 
where, in those ancient times, the people of 

Israel were held in bondage by a heathen king, 

8 



118 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

and where Ezekiel had those wonderful visions, 
some of which yon read to us to-day. Shall we 
visit it on our way to Bagdad? " 

" Not if we follow our plan of joining an 
Arab encampment," replied the doctor. " There 
is nothing remarkable about the place now ex- 
cept its natural beauty. In the times of the 
captivity it was covered with towns and vil- 
lages. A large population no doubt dwelt on 
its banks, and on the neighboring plain. Nu- 
merous ancient ruins of Assyrian structures 
prove that ; but now it is chiefly remarkable for 
its fertile pastures and ' flowery meads.' Mr. 
Layard says : » From its mouth to its source, 
from Carehemish to Ras-al-Ain, there is now 
no single permanent human habitation on the 
Khabour.' " 

" Indeed ! " exclaimed Eonald. " Has it no 
inhabitants ? " 

" Only wandering Arabs, who make the val- 
ley their summer pasturing ground," replied the 
doctor. . " They regard it as a paradise, because, 
unlike their treeless deserts, its wooded banks, 



Joining an Arab Camp. 119 

its emerald greensward, its rich crops of grass, 
and its abundant tender herbs afford food for 
their camels and sheep, and cool shades in which 
to pitch their tents at a time when their deserts 
are yellow and parched." 

" I remember," added the professor, " that 
Mr. Layard was delighted with its scenery. 
Standing on a mound, from which he finally 
extracted some curious remains of Assyrian 
art, his eye ranged over a level country bright 
with flowers and spotted with black Arab tents 
and innumerable flocks of sheep and camels. 
During his stay, while his men were working 
at the mound, he noticed that the plain, which 
stretches beyond the valley, was undergoing a 
continual change. First it was golden yellow ; 
then a new family of flowers appeared and 
changed it to a bright scarlet, after which it be- 
came a deep blue. Around this spot, he wrote, 
may have been pitched the tents of the sorrow- 
ing Jews as these of the Arabs are now. To 
the same pastures they led their sheep, and they 
drank of the same waters." 



120 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" Then Mr. Layard had no doubt that the 
captive Jews lived there, as the Bible teaches," 
observed the thoughtful Ronald. 

" Not the least. He had found too many 
proofs of the truth of Scripture story, written 
and carved in stone, in all the vast regions over 
which the proud Assyrian once reigned to per- 
mit a doubt of the exact truth of Bible history. 
Besides the stone records which he and others 
like him dug from the ruins of Assyrian and 
Babylonian cities he found in the writings of 
uninspired historians such other evidences of the 
presence of Jews on the Khabour that he said, 
6 We know that Jews still lingered in the cities 
of the Khabour until long after the Arabs in- 
vaded that country. That is, the thing is his- 
torically certain.' He also says that Benjamin 
of Tudela, who visited it in the latter end of 
the twelfth century, found families among its 
people who claimed to be descendants of those 
captive Jews whom King Shalmaneser carried 
away from Samaria centuries before. God has 
set his seal on the Bible, and bad men cannot 




Hassan on the Look-out 



Joining an Arab Camp. 123 

prove it unworthy of the faith of the world. 
But, as we may have a long ride to-morrow, we 
had better finish our talk on these, interesting 
questions at some future time." 

The next morning Hassan informed our trav- 
elers that an Anezeh tribe, recently engaged in 
a foray against some hostile tribes, was in the 
desert not far away. As it was their wish to 
travel awhile with the genuine men of the des- 
ert, they left the caravan route to Bagdad, and 
pushed out at once into the desert in search of 
this Anezeh tribe. 

After riding two or three hours Ronald and 
Richard, who were cantering a few rods ahead 
of their party, though careful to glance back- 
ward now and then lest they should get astray, 
suddenly reined in their little steeds, and gazed 
with strained eyes upon several objects moving 
apparently toward them in the distance. After 
a few moments Ronald asked his brother, with 
some alarm : 

" What do you see, Dick ? " 

"Men on horseback, I think," replied his 



124 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

brother, " though they are so little I can't ex- 
actly make out what they are." 

" Yes, I see," replied Eonald, after a search- 
ing glance in the direction toward which his 
brother was pointing. " They are growing 
larger every moment. I guess they are some 
wild Arabs out on the raiding expedition Has- 
san told us of. There are one, two, three, four 
— yes, six of them, I declare ! " 

"We had better go back to our folks. Per- 
haps our sheikh can tell us whether they are his 
friends or not," said Kichard. 

Turning their ponies about, they saw Hassan 
in the act of driving his camel ahead of their 
party, which had by this time come to a stand- 
still. The doctor and professor were in close 
consultation. The servants and muleteers were 
also talking earnestly together. Seeing these 
signs of either interest or alarm, the brothers 
rode close up to their tutor, and Ronald asked, 
somewhat nervously : 

" Do you think those fellows who are coming 
this way will attack us, professor ? " 



Joining an Arab Camp. 125 

" Probably not," replied Dr. Benedict. 
"Hassan thinks they are Anezehs. See! be is 
getting near them. He is brandishing his 
spear like a warrior defying an enemy. Can't 
yon see his movement ? " 

Yes, they could see it, but could not under- 
stand what it indicated until the doctor, who 
had been looking through his field-glass, ob- 
served : " They are friendly Arabs. Hassan has 
joined them, and is coming back in their com- 
pany. Let us go to meet them." 

" Hadn't we better get our revolvers ready, 
though ? " asked Richard, whose courage was 
usually greater than his wisdom. 

" By no means," replied the doctor. " If 
they are friendly, as I doubt not they are, we 
shall not need revolvers. If they are enemies, 
it will be madness for us to fight them. It is 
not their custom to kill travelers who do not 
resist them by force. At the worst, they will 
only rob us if we do not fight them." 

In a short time the advancing horsemen, with 
Hassan in their company, came near enough 



126 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

for the latter to tell the doctor that the Strang- 
ers belonged to his tribe, and were the vanguard 
of a large encampment which was returning 
from a raid and moving toward fresh pastur- 
ing ground. " If," said he, " we keep a little 
more to the north we can let them pass without 
getting mixed up with them. When they stop 
to rest, as they soon will, we can join them, if 
their sheikh will permit." 

As our party had never yet seen a large 
body of Arabs on the march, the boys were de- 
lighted with the prospect of seeing the one 
now approaching. Parting company with the 
armed Arab horsemen, one of whom rode back, 
probably to tell their friends who our travelers 
were, our party rode a little to the north of 
their intended course for a mile or two, when 
they saw slowly coming into view a long line of 
Arabs, armed with spears and sabers, and mount- 
ed, some on horses and some on camels. They 
were perhaps a hundred paces apart, and their 
line stretched along the desert for more than 
two miles. Just behind them were hundreds of 



Joining an Arab Camp. 127 

she-camels, with their young ones, moving in 
ranks widely separated from each other, and 
browsing as they marched upon the wild herb- 
age at their feet. 

After these came many camels laden with 
the tents and provisions of the tribe. Next in 
order were the women and children, also 
mounted on camels and seated in cradle-shaped 
saddles, surmounted with curtains to protect 
them from the sun. Scattered among all these 
camels were horsemen, some of whom led 
horses, without riders, by their halters. Be- 
hind all, and at a considerable distance, was a 
large flock of sheep and goats, driven by a few 
shepherds on foot. 

" Well," remarked Ronald, when this long 
Arab array had passed, " I never saw such a 
procession as that before. If Barnum could get 
it to America he would beat himself. His 
' greatest show on earth ' would be beaten out 
of sight by this immense cavalcade." 

After resuming their march in the rear of 
the Arabs, Richard rode to the doctor's side, 



128 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

and asked him : " Why did Hassan flourish his 
]ance when he met the first horsemen we 
saw ? " 

u He did that to show the pride he takes in 
the honor of his tribe," replied the doctor. " It 
was his act of defiance in case the horsemen 
should prove to be enemies. Had you been 
near him you would have heard him say, as he 
did it, ' I am an Anezeh ! I am an Anezeh ! ' 
By Arab law this act and speech would have 
justified the strangers, had they been enemies, 
in treating him with all the rigors of war. If, 
instead of flourishing, he had laid dowm his 
lance, his life would have been safe, but his 
reputation for courage would have been lost. 
Even his own people would have treated him 
with contempt to the day of his death. But 
as they proved to be friends, his defiant 
act saved both his reputation and his prop- 
erty." 

" Don't you think he knew them to be friends, 
doctor ? " asked Richard ; " and wasn't his cour- 
age put on for effect % " 



Joining an Arab Camp. 129 

" It may be so, my boy," replied the doctor, 
laughing. ""We know he expected to meet 
friends, and his boldness may have grown out 
of that expectation. But let us be charitable. 
Hassan seems to be a plucky fellow, and we will 
take him at his own price until we are sure he 
is a counterfeit." 

The Arabs soon arrived at one of the wells of 
the desert. Guided by Hassan, the doctor went 
to see their sheikh, from whom he obtained per- 
mission to travel awhile with his tribe, which, 
after leaving its sheep with some shepherds at 
Deyr, was to travel southward to spend the re- 
mainder of the winter. 



130 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SHIPS OF THE DESERT. 

THE Arabs pitched their numerous tents in a 
valley-like depression of the plain, which 
afforded some protection against the wind, and, 
what was still more important, pasturage for 
their camels. Their sheikh, Mahmoud, received 
the doctor very graciously, conversed very freely 
with him, offered him coffee and dates, and gave 
him permission to travel with his people as long 
as he pleased. So satisfied was the doctor witli 
his manner and hospitality that he presented 
him with a valuable cloak. On joining his 
brother and the boys, he said : 

"Mahmoud is a. venerable old gentleman, 
polite as a Frenchman, and as hearty in his hos- 
pitality as an Englishman is to a welcome guest. 
He wishes to see you all in his tent as soon as 
you are rested." 




Dromedary. 



The Ships of the Desert. 133 

An abundant supply of camel's milk, rice, 
butter, bread, and dates, sent to their tent by 
tlie sheikh, enabled their cook, who was already 
well supplied with game, to provide a refreshing 
luncheon. A heavy rain compelled them to re- 
main in their tent through the afternoon. The 
next morning being clear and cool, the boys 
sauntered out to survey the Arab encampment, 
which was divided into separate groups of tents 
and stretched for a mile or two along the wady. 
In the widest parts they saw their camels graz- 
ing on chamomile, wild oats, barley, rye, and 
various species of grass ; their horses were teth- 
ered in the vicinity of the tents, in and around 
which the men were lolling about in the full en- 
joyment of that indolence which is so agreeable 
to those desert wanderers, as it is also to all 
natives of Oriental countries. The women, 
however, were not idle, but busy gather- 
ing woody shrubs for their fires, grinding 
grain, preparing food, and milking the goats 
and camels. 

" Those Arabs are lazy fellows, they look like 



134 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

a lot of loafers, while their women are busy as 
bees." 

This was Ronald's indignant remark to the 
professor, on his return to their tent. That gen- 
tleman, in reply, said : 

" Yes ; like our Indians, these nomadic Arabs 
do the hunting and fighting, but require their 
women to do all the work of their encamp- 
ments." 

The objects which most moved the curiosities 
of the boys during the day were the camels. 
The young of these ungainly creatures especial- 
ly excited their mirth. When they first saw one 
of them Ronald laughed aloud and exclaimed : 

" See, Dick, that baby camel is all neck and 
legs, and no body ! Look at its big eyes ! They 
stick out like the bulls' eyes in a ship. Did you 
ever see such a queer creature ? " 

Richard confessed that he had not. Then his 
brother, turning to the doctor, asked : 

" Why do these Arabs keep so many camels \ 
They don't make them work, except those which 
carry burdens when they move to new pasture 



The Ships of the Desert. 135 

ground. What do they do with them, Dr. 
Benedict ? " 

" They drink their milk as food and raise 
them for sale, Ronald. The tribes in the more 
southerly part of this vast desert breed them in 
much greater numbers than is done so far north 
as this." 

" But who buys them, doctor ? " queried 
Richard, in the tone of one to whom a state- 
ment seems incredible. 

u The Turkomans, the Kurds, and sometimes 
the Egyptian government, buy them. They are 
excellent beasts of burden. To an army mov- 
ing through a sparsely settled country, poorly 
supplied with water and with no solid highways, 
they are indispensable as carriers of baggage 
and ammunition. They have been called the 
" ships of the desert," which could not be trav- 
ersed without them. The great caravans of com- 
merce and hosts of pilgrims, which annually 
traverse these deserts from Mohammedan coun- 
tries to Mecca, also keep up a perpetual demand 
for these useful creatures." 



136 Bor Travelers in Arabia. 

" I have read somewhere," said Ronald, " that 
camels carry so much water in their stomach 
that they can travel for days, or even w r eeks, 
without drinking. Is that a fact, doctor ? " 

Before the doctor had time to reply Richard 
added : " And I have heard that when travelers 
can't find water in the desert they sometimes 
kill their camels and drink the water that is in 
their stomachs to save their own lives. Can 
that be true, sir ? " 

The doctor laughed as he replied, after the 
manner of a genuine Yankee, by asking : " If 
you found yourself nearly frozen with cold and 
had nothing with which to make a fire, would 
you burn your house ? " 

" Not unless I wanted to freeze to death, as I 
should be sure to do after the house was burned 
up," rejoined Richard. 

" For a similar reason no Arab would kill his 
camel to quench his thirst. To kill his camel 
would be throwing away his last chance of 
reaching a well or an encampment of his 
friends. But it is not true that camels do 



The Ships of the Desert. 137 

carry water in their stomachs for more than a 
few hours after drinking. They can, however, 
endure thirst much longer than horses. If 
reared in a region well supplied with water they 
must drink every other day in summer time. 
If driven a third day without water they are 
apt to sink. But camels raised in hot and dry 
parts of the desert will travel four days without 
drinking ; after that they would be greatly dis- 
tressed and most probably die." 

" I recollect," added the professor, " that 
Mr. Burckhardt speaks of seeing many camels 
slaughtered, but saw no water in their stomachs 
unless they had drank a few hours before." 

" He does," remarked the doctor, " and he 
also states that the African camel, raised in Dar- 
fur, can endure thirst longer than the Arabian. 
Caravans from that country to Egypt are often 
nine or ten days without water, but many of the 
poor camels die on the road, and all of them 
suffer terrible distress. No Arabian camel 
could survive such a journey." 

After this talk about camels Richard obtained 



138 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

permission from the sheikh to mount one, and, 
in company with Hassan, to take a short ride in 
the neighborhood of the camp. The animal he 
rode was small and quick of step. After the 
lad had taken his seat and the creature had 
risen to its feet, the sheikh said to the doctor : 

" That creature's back is so soft that you may 
drink a cup of coffee while you ride upon him.' , 

This was the usual compliment paid by an 
Arab to his trained riding camel. The doctor 
translated it for Richard's benefit. The boy 
laughed, and replied : " I'll tell you how true 
that is when I come back." 

Hassan led the way, not putting his beast into 
either a gallop or a trot, but into that ambling 
gait which is most natural to the camel, and 
which, on his return, Richard declared was very 
easy and pleasant. After dismounting, he 
asked : 

"How far do you suppose I have ridden, 
doctor?" 

Taking out his watch Mr. Benedict replied : 

" You have been gone about half an hour, and 



The Ships of the Desert. 139 

have probably covered a distance of two miles 
and a half. Five miles an hour is the average 
rate at which such camels travel when left to 
their own choice." 

" Do you think those big, heavy fellows yon- 
der travel as fast as that, sir?" asked Ronald, 
pointing to some burden-bearing camels grazing 
near by. 

"There are camels and camels" replied the 
doctor, smiling. " Camels differ as much as 
horses. Some are like our heavily-built coach- 
horses ; others are more like our race-horses. 
The small, light ones are often called dromeda- 
ries or delouls. The one Richard has been 
riding is a deloul. It takes a caravan composed 
mostly of the burden-carrying camels tw^enty- 
five days to travel from Aleppo to Bagdad, 
while special messengers, on camels of the best 
breed, will cover the same distance in about 
seven days." 

"It is a pity the camel is such a homely 
beast," said Ronald. " Its hump is any thing 
but beautiful." 



14:0 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" Yet the hump is a point in his camel to 
which the Arab pays great attention," replied 
the professor. 

The boys laughed outright at him, and then 
one of them said : " Well, I can't imagine what 
there is in a camel's hump to look at unless it 
be to make one wish there was some way of 
removing it." 

" Yet," replied the professor, " the Arabs, 
when starting on a j ourney, will look on their 
camels and say, if the humps are fat, ' Our 
camels will stand the journey. They will feed 
on the fat of their humps.' They know that 
so long as the hump retains its fat the camel 
will bear great fatigue on very little food. 
While traveling, the lump grows smaller unless 
the animal is well fed, and when it is over- 
worked the hump shrinks into very small pro- 
portions, and then if it be obliged to travel 
farther, its body is soon reduced into a mere 
skeleton. Plenty of food, with rest, however 
soon restores its flesh ; but the hump does not 
recover its fat until some time after." 




Peregrine Falcon. 



The Ships of the Desert. 143 

During the day our party rode out to hunt 
and shoot, partly for amusement, but chiefly for 
the benefit of their cook's larder. The sheikh, 
according to Arab notions of hospitality to 
guests, as stated above, had sent liberal supplies 
of dates, bread, meat, truffles, etc., to their tent ; 
yet, partly for the sake of varying their diet, and 
partly because they loved the taste of game, they 
sought to add the birds or animals of the desert 
to the gifts of the hospitable Arab. 

The sheikh, who owned some trained hawks 
and hounds, sent some of his attendants with 
them on their expedition. One of the hawks 
brought a bustard to the ground. 

The boys had never before that day seen any 
hunting with a falcon. They had read of hawk- 
ing or falconry as a noble sport, and had often 
seen pictures of gay courtiers and aristocratic 
maidens, with huntsmen carrying falcons on their 
wrists. But to-day they saw an Arab falconer 
carrying a hooded falcon a-field, and making its 
instincts do service by capturing a bustard for 
the game-bag. When the bustard was seen 



144 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

flying, as is its habit, near the ground, the falcon 
was freed from its keeper s hand. Away it went 
in swift pursuit. As soon as it overtook the 
bustard, which dropped to the ground as if to 
fight for its life, the falcon pounced upon it and 
tried to pierce it to death with its beak. The 
bustard, however, was no coward. It fought 
desperately with wings and beak. For a time 
it seemed doubtful which would conquer, but 
after a few minutes the falcon conquered. Then 
the falconer uttered a peculiar call and swung a 
piece of flesh in the air. The falcon, trained to 
obey this call, quitted its prey and promptly 
devoured the bit of flesh which was its reward 
for the service rendered. Like most all hunting 
for sport, it was cruelty to the bustard, but being 
quite a novelty to our young travelers it afforded 
them much amusement. 

Still more exciting to them was the attack of 
the hawk upon a swift gazelle, which was started 
from its hiding-place by the sheikh's hounds. 
Away flew the falcon in rapid pursuit of the 
affrighted creature. On coming up with its 



The Ships of the Desert. 145 

prey the hawk pounced upon its head, striking 
it with its beak between the horns and throwing 
it down. In its struggle for life, the gazelle 
rose to its feet, only to be struck a second time 
by its fierce foe. The hound, trained to follow 
the movement of the falcon, then seized the 
gazelle and held it fast until the falconer came 
up and killed the panting creature with a spear. 

" I never saw such sport before in my life," 
said Eichard, clapping his hands gleefully when 
the capture of the gazelle was completed. 

" It is exciting sport," replied Eonald ; " but I 
did pity that poor gazelle, it looked so pitifully 
that I could scarcely help crying." 

The cry of the hounds prevented further con- 
versation. The creatures had started a fox, 
which, after being coursed awhile, made out to 
escape. A couple of hares were less successful, 
and were carefully bagged by the doctor. 
Quails were abundant in the thick growths of 
wild oats ; and after several hours of healthful 
riding they returned to their tent well satisfied 
with the fruits of their excursion. 



146 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

As they rode leisurely back to their tent, the 
doctor, in reply to the inquiries of the boys, 
explained the manner in which the Arabs 
trained their hawks. They began, he said, by 
feeding the hawk with raw meat, placing it the 
first day on the ground. The next few days 
its meat is fed to it from the hands of the fal- 
coner, who holds the meat a little higher each 
day, until the bird learns to seize it at any height 
he chooses to hold it. After this its meat is 
placed on the back of a fowl. When the 
hawk learns to take it thence, the fowl is killed 
and its liver fed to the falcon. Next a bustard 
is captured alive, and used the same way as the 
fowl. By this time the hawk has been taught 
to pounce on the bustard whenever it sees one 
and is freed from its tresses. 

In training the hawk to hunt the gazelle a 
bit of raw meat is tied to the head of a stuffed 
animal and fed to it daily. The next step is 
to place its meat between the horns of a tame 
living gazelle. Every day the falconer carries 
his hawk farther from the gazelle, until it will 



The Ships of the Desert. 147 

fly half a mile to take its ration from the creat- 
ure's head. The final step in its training is to 
set loose a hound on the gazelle at the same 
moment the hawk is set free. Away it flies 
after the frightened animal, which is soon caught 
by the hound and thrown to the ground. The 
falconer then hastens to the prostrate beast, cuts 
its throat and feeds the hawk upon a portion of 
its flesh. This cruelty is repeated usually three 
times, after which the hound and the falcon 
are sufficiently trained to hunt in company, the 
bird soon learning to select the same animal as 
the hound, even in a large herd of gazelles, and 
to strike it on the head with its powerful beak. 

After satisfying the very proper curiosity of 
the lads, the doctor led the way at a sharp canter 
to their tent, where, after the sport of the after- 
noon, they ate their meal with that best of sauces 
— keen hunger caused by active exercise in the 
open air. 

When talking over the events of the day, as 
they sat lolling at the tent-door in the evening, 
Ronald said : " One thing struck me as very odd 



148 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

to-day. We are in what is called the Great 
Arabian Desert, yet when we rode ont of this 
wady, and got a good view of the level beyond 
it, I think I never saw any thing more beautiful. 
It was as gay as one of our cultivated gardens at 
home. I noticed marigolds, asters, tulips, and 
wall-flowers, and they seem to cover the plain as 
far as I could see." 

" Yes," added Richard, with a merry smile ; 
" and I, too, wondered when I saw geraniums 
and purple stalks growing in such vast beds in 
the wady, whether, after all, our tutor and the 
doctor had not been playing a big joke with us, 
by bringing us into the Vale of Cashmere, per- 
haps, and misnaming it the Desert of the Eu- 
phrates." 

" Possibly you might not see any point to 
your joke, Master Richard," replied the pro- 
fessor, laughing, " if we were to bring you here 
next May. Then, instead of the deep green of 
the wady and the lovely floral carpet on the 
level plain, you would see scarcely a sign of all 
this wealth of grass or of these gayly blooming 



The Ships of the Desert. 149 

flowers. The plain would then appear to you as 
the symbol of drought and barrenness, while the 
green of the wady would be replaced with the 
yellow of the dried-up grasses and shrubs. You 
would, if compelled to cross it then, be in no 
doubt about being in the Arabian desert." 

" "What do these Arabs do, sir, when the hot 
season turns their pastures into a real desert ? " 
asked Konald. 

To this query the doctor replied : " They 
move northward into what is called the upper 
Syrian desert and into the valleys of the Tigris 
and the Euphrates, where, even in summer, they 
find water and pasture of some sort for their 
camels, goats, and sheep. There they find 
themselves in the neighborhood of towns and 
villages with whose inhabitants they trade and 
with whom they leave their sheep during their 
winter wanderings toward the south of the 
desert. The coming of the first frosts and rains 
in autumn is the signal for the renewal of their 
southern journeys, since the rain quickly trans- 
forms the desert from a scene of barrenness into 



150 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

one of plenty and beauty, as you see it now. 
Thus you see that these Arabs of the desert 
spend their lives with no fixed homes. Like the 
patriarch, Ishmael, they wander from place to 
place, and are apparently content without any 
abiding place. The wide desert over which they 
annually range, to the extent of ten degrees of 
latitude, is included in their conception of home, 
since to them any spot covered by their tent is 
the only resting-place they either know or de- 
sire. But Richard is nodding, I see, and we 
will finish our talk about our Arab friends to- 



Huzza for Bagdad! 151 



CHAPTER VIII. 
HUZZA FOR BAGDAD I 

r\ UR active Boston boys, after spending a few 
" days in the Arab encampment, began to 
grow weary of such an idle life. If they had 
been able to speak their language they might, 
perhaps, have found some amusement talking 
and playing with the sober-faced Arab boys, of 
whom there were a goodly number in the camp. 
As it was they could only stand silently watch- 
ing them as they mounted their horses and 
galloped in fearless fashion round the purlieus of 
the camping ground. As there was little variety 
in these exercises, they soon grew tired of watch- 
ing them. Their daily morning pursuit of game 
with the doctor outside the wady was their only 
real relief from dullness. After dinner they 
roamed almost listlessly among the tents until, 
tired of looking at the indolent Arabs lolling in 



152 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

the shade of their tents, and at the women re- 
peating the same simple domestic tasks every day, 
they would return to their own tents yawning 
with weariness, and wishing themselves in some 
other place, where, as Richard phrased his desire, 
" there was something worth looking at, and 
something for a fellow to do." 

" Well, what have you seen to-day, young 
gentlemen ? " asked the professor, one afternoon, 
as they strolled into the tent and stretched them- 
selves lazily on its carpet. 

" Exactly what we saw yesterday," curtly re- 
plied Richard in a gruff, dissatisfied tone of voice. 

" Was there nothing visible that was new and 
strange to you, Richard ? " 

" ISo, nothing more than we have seen every 
day since we came into this sleepy hollow." 

" You forgot one thing, Dick," said Ronald, 
" don't you recollect those women in the rear of 
the old sheikh's tent who were grinding wheat ? " 

" No, I don't. But that was nothing wonder- 
ful, was it I " 

"Perhaps not wonderful, but I thought it 



Huzza for Bagdad ! 



153 



worth seeing, because it reminded me of that 
Bible text which speaks of two women grinding 
at the mill. It has often puzzled me to under- 
stand what kind of a mill it could be with 




WOMEN AT THE MILL. 



which two women could grind wheat. But to- 
day we saw such a mill. It was two circular 
stones, about eighteen inches across, placed one 
upon the other on a cloth spread upon the 



154 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

ground. The top stone seemed to rest on a 
wooden peg or pivot, and had a wooden handle 
by which it was turned round. Two women 
sat beside it on the grass. One of them took 
wheat by the handful out of a bag and dropped 
it into a hole through which the loose pivot 
ran. The other woman turned the handle very 
fast. The wheat, falling through the hole and 
between the upper and lower stones, was then 
ground into meal, which we saw dropping from 
between the stones upon the cloth beneath." 

" A very capital description that, Master 
Konald!" exclaimed the professor. "And in 
seeing that mill, you saw how the people of 
the desert, and of eastern cities, too, in very 
ancient times, ground their grain. It explains 
what Isaiah the prophet meant when he told 
the 'daughter of Babylon' to 'sit in the dust, 
and to take the millstones and grind meal.' " 

" 1 didn't think much of the mill," said Ki ch- 
ard, " but I did think that those loafing Arab 
men might have worked that old mill instead 
of putting such a task on their women." 



Huzza for Bagdad ! 155 

"It would not be safe to say that to an Arab," 
replied the professor, " for lie considers it be- 
neath the dignity of a man to do domestic work 
of any kind ; therefore he places the drudgery 
of his tent on women's shoulders." 

" I wouldn't give a fig for an Arab's dignity, 
then," said Ronald ; " but x professor, we saw 
those women make their meal into bread. They 
gathered some of it into a bowl, poured water 
upon it, and kneaded it into little round balls. 
These balls they rolled into thin cakes on a 
wooden platter. Then, quick as a wink, they 
slipped the cakes from the roller on to a thin 
iron plate which they had placed over a tiny 
fire that was burning in a hole on the ground 
near by. These cakes were soon baked and 
carried into the tent." 

" That, too, is the ancient Oriental mode of 
bread-making," said the professor. " It is, prob- 
ably, the way that Sarah made cakes for the 
three angels who visited the tent of Abraham, 
as related in the Book of Genesis." 

Just at that moment the doctor entered the 
10 



156 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

tent, and interrupted their conversation by say- 
ing : u We are going to witness a furious desert 
storm, the clouds have been gathering several 
hours, and are now formed into a vast circle. 
Step outside and watch them. It is a sight 
worth seeing." 

The boys, seeing how calmly the doctor spoke, 
did not give way to fear, as they might have 
done had he been excited. But when they were 
in the open air and saw the angry clouds gath- 
ered into a vast wheel, and slowly but majestic- 
ally whirling round, their hearts began to beat 
somewhat violently. It was an awfnl spectacle, 
such as they had never witnessed in their New 
England home. Their faces turned pale when 
they saw fierce flashes of forked lightning leap 
incessantly from every part of that wonderful 
cloud- wheel which was constantly growing larger 
as immense masses of clouds rose up from all 
parts of the desert, and were drawn as by an 
unseen but irresistible force into the fiery vor- 
tex. On, on it came toward the camp. The 
boys trembled with apprehension. Even the 



Huzza for Bagdad! 157 

doctor wore an anxious look as it approached 
them, and they retreated within the door of 
their tent for shelter. Presently a deluge of 
rain mingled with hailstones larger than mar- 
bles burst upon the encampment. They held 
their breath from fear, but breathed freely 
again when the terrible cloud -wheel rolled 
grandly away to another part of the desert. 

" Thanks to our heavenly Father ! " exclaimed 
the doctor with reverence, "that danger has 
passed. We were only just within the edge of 
the storm, which might, had we felt its full 
force, have swept us and our encampment to 
destruction." Then, pointing to the west, he 
added : " See that golden sunset ! and let it 
teach you that behind the terrors of nature the 
God of love reigns for evermore." 

The sight of an excited horseman galloping 
past now arrested their attention. The rider 
drew bridle in front of the sheikh's tent, which 
he quickly entered. A few minutes passed, 
during which our party gazed with inquiring 
eyes upon the sheikh's tent, until they saw sev- 



158 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

eral Arabs quit it and walk off with rapid steps 
in different directions. This movement led the 
doctor to say : 

"That Arab probably brought news of an ex- 
pected raid on our encampment by some tribe 
with which our sheikh is at variance. I will go 
and find out if I can." 

The doctor's impression proved to be correct. 
The Arab horseman had brought word that a 
large camp of Arabs, thought to be enemies, 
was moving across the desert toward them. 
Orders were, therefore, issued for breaking up 
the encampment at sunrise the next morning, 
and for marching the tribe farther south, and 
for its lighting horsemen to start in the direc- 
tion of the approaching Arabs to learn who 
they were, and, if necessary, to fight them. 

The two boys, in happy ignorance of their 
own danger in case of a successful attack on 
their sheikh's party, were delighted with the 
prospect of the morrow's march. Richard gave 
undignified expression to his gladness by turn- 
ing a somersault on the tent carpet. Ronald 



Huzza for Bagdad! 159 

with equal joy, but greater propriety of manner, 
said, gleefully : 

" Huzza for Bagdad ! I've had enough of the 
dull life of an Arab camp, and shall be quite 
ready to go home when I have had a peep at 
the city of the wonderful caliph who used to 
go round the streets of Bagdad in all sorts of 
disguises." 

To add to their satisfaction, the doctor told 
them that the line of march to be taken by their 
Arab friends would soon bring them to some 
point on the route usually taken by caravans 
traveling between Damascus and Bagdad, and 
he added, "We will join the first caravan we 
happen to meet, and go direct to Bagdad." 

" I recollect," said Eon aid, " hearing one of 
our fellows recite a passage from Milton's 
i Paradise Lost,' in which there were three or 
four lines about Araby the Happy. Shall we 
pass through that part of Arabia in going to 
Bagdad?" 

The doctor laughed so significantly at this in- 
quiry that Eonald, feeling that he had probably 



160 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

betrayed his ignorance of Arabian geography, 
blushed and looked half- ashamed. Nor was he 
much relieved when the doctor, addressing his 
brother, asked, " Can you recite the passage to 
which he refers 1 " 

" I think I can," the professor replied. " Mil- 
ton, in describing Paradise, speaks of its per- 
fumed gales, and, by way of illustrating his 
meaning, introduces the simile of a ship sailing 
from the Cape of Good Hope through the Mo- 
zambique Channel into the Arabian Sea. On 
reaching the coast of Southern Arabia the voy- 
agers find themselves where the 

" ' North-east winds blow 
Sabean odors from the spicy shore 
Of Araby the blest. With such delay, 
Well pleased, they slack their course, and many a league 
Cheered with the grateful smell, old ocean smiles.' " 

By this time Eonald, whose question was 
asked more in thoughtlessness than in real ig- 
norance of geography, had brought to mind the 
conformation of the African peninsula, and he 
now remarked : 



Huzza for Bagdad ! 1G1 

"Please excuse me, doctor, I bad forgotten 
for the moment that Bagdad is an inland city 
and that Arabia Felix is back of the coast of the 
Arabian Sea. But will you please tell us why 
it is so named % Is it really a happy and blessed 
country ? " 

" Compared with the stony and desert por- 
tions of Arabia it is, indeed, a pleasant land. If 
you should travel south of this portion of the 
desert you would find yourself in a boundless 
waste of sand without a tree to shelter you 
from the scorching sun, or to protect you from 
the suffocating winds which sweep across the 
dreary landscape. So fearful are those hot 
winds at times, that they form whirlwinds of 
sand beneath which whole caravans of travelers, 
and even armies of soldiers, are sometimes 
buried. No vegetation grows there to relieve 
the weary eyes of the unhappy pilgrims whose 
way leads through it. No rivers glide through 
those terrible sands. Wells are scarce, and 
when one passes from the level part of the des- 
ert into the mountains which intersect it, one 



162 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



finds them naked, steep, and destitute of beauty. 
But if one succeeds in reaching the high lands 



^§€^®s 



.. ^ 



^«aail::» .. ... ........... ...... . 




SAND-STORM IN THE DESERT. 



on the southern border of the desert, he finds 
shady groves, running streams, fertile fields, 
trees that bear delicious fruits, and shrubs which 
make the air delightful with their sweet per- 
fume. The stately palm, the elegant tamarind- 
tree, give a charm to the scenery ; the coffee- 
tree, the balm-tree, the frankincense-tree, the 



Huzza foe Bagdad ! 163 

fig-tree, and the vine are there, and in the gar- 
dens of Tayef roses of the most exquisite 
beauty and fragrance afford rare delight to the 
senses. All this makes it a goodly land, but 
when contrasted with the sandy and rocky por- 
tions, it appears almost paradisaical. Hence you 
can readily understand why the Arabs call it 
Arabia the Happy." 

" I recollect," observed the professor, " that 
Burckhardt was much pleased with it, and, 
speaking of his journey from Tayef to Mecca, 
he says that at sunrise every tree and shrub ex- 
haled a delicious fragrance. Hence when Mil- 
ton called it Araby the Blest, he only spoke the 
simple truth so far as the country itself was con- 
cerned. Had he written of the people who in- 
habit it, some other descriptive term would have 
been more fitting. The followers of the false 
prophet may be physically comfortable in such 
a land, but there is no power in their religious 
creed to make them happy." 

The boys thanked the doctor for his descrip- 
tion of Araby the Blest, and Eonald said : 



1C4 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" You have told mo facts which give that 
pretty phrase a meaning to me which it never 
had before. But you spoke of the coffee-tree 
growing there, Dr. Benedict. Did that tree 
grow there before it grew anywhere else ? " 

" You mean to ask if it was indigenous there, 
or did it originate somewhere else, I suppose % " 
rejoined the doctor. " That is a question I can- 
not answer, for the reason that learned men are 
not agreed upon it. Some think that Arabia 
Felix is the birthplace of the coffee-tree ; oth- 
ers think that it was first found in Abyssinia, 
on the opposite side of the Red Sea, and taken 
to Yemen in the fourteenth century. The 
Arabians believe this, and say that the plant was 
brought to them by a holy man named Shadeli, 
whom for this reason they regard as a benefactor 
to mankind. And they never lift a cup of cof- 
fee to their lips without previously giving him 
praise in a short prayer." 

" That would prove, I should think, that the 
Arabs are very fond of coffee," said Ronald. 

" Possibly they are, yet it may surprise you 



Huzza foe Bagdad ! 165 

to be told that in Araby the Blest the Arabs sel- 
dom use the coffee bean for making a drink," 
replied the doctor. 

" Not use the bean ! " exclaimed Konald. 
" How, then, can they be said to drink coffee, 
as you just now said they did ? " 

u They use the hush in which the bean lies, 
and send the bean to Mokha for sale," the doc- 
tor replied. " The infusion made from the 
husk they call, not coffee, but Tceshir. Travel- 
ers tell us that in the province of Yemen huts 
are found along the road side for the sale of 
this drink to travelers. Many such huts have 
been built and endowed by pious Arabs in 
which poor travelers are permitted to remain 
three days, and are supplied, free of cost, with 
keshir, and an article of food called durra." 

" You spoke of Mokha, sir," said Richard. 
" I have often seen Mocha coffee advertised in 
the Boston papers. Is the coffee so named 
grown in Arabia ? " 

" Most of the coffee grown in Yemen is sent 
to Mokha for sale, and goes by that name in 



166 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

our markets ; but great quantities are grown in 
Africa, which is also sold under that name. But 
it is now high time for us to attend to our 
evening worship, since we shall have to be astir 
bright and early to-morrow." 

Thus saying, the doctor requested his brother 
to read from the divine word, after which 
they sung an evening hymn, commended them- 
selves and the dear ones at home to their 
heavenly Father, and then slept the sweet 
sleep of them that trust in God. 

The next morning our travelers looked with 
surprise at the rapidity with which the tents 
were taken down, the baggage camels loaded, 
the encampment broken up, and the march 
begun. There were signs at first of the haste 
which is caused by fear. But these signs disap- 
peared when a spy who had been sent out the 
previous evening returned with tidings that the 
tribe thought at first to be enemies were friends, 
and that they were desirous of uniting the fight- 
ing forces of both camps to make a raid on a 
common enemy, who, they said, was within fight- 



Huzza for Bagdad ! 167 

ing distance. This news, however, did not 
prevent the march of their friends southward, 
because the wady had been pretty well shorn of 
its grass during their stay. 

Our boy travelers while on the march that 
day led the professor to tell them some stories 
of the great Haroun-al-Kaschid, who, in the 
days of his prime, used often to cross the great 
Arabian desert on his pilgrimages from Bagdad 
to Mecca. 

" The caliph," said the professor, " while on one 
of those pilgrimages, met an old woman in the 
desert. ' Tell me,' said he, ' to what tribe you 
belong % ' The woman replied, ' To the Taiy.' 

" ' Ah ! how is it that your tribe cannot pro- 
duce another Hatim \ ' asked the caliph. 

" Now Hatim Taiy was an Arab who lived 
prior to the times of Mohammed, and had a 
great reputation for princely liberality. The 
old lady, who knew the caliph's love of adroit 
flattery, quickly responded, 'How is it that 
the whole race of the caliphs never produced 
one like you, O commander of the faithful ? ' 



168 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

" The monarch, pleased with the old woman's 
compliment, commanded his treasurer to give 
her a liberal sum of money, and sent her on her 
way proud of her own ready wit, and rejoicing 
in the good fortune which had led her into the 
caliph's presence." 

"Ha, ha," laughed Eichard, "that old 
Arab must have been an ancestress of our 
Yankees. She knew how to answer one ques- 
tion by asking another." 

"That's so," added Eonald, "and she also 
knew how to make her ready wit pay. Her 
words tickled the caliph's vanity." 

" I suppose," remarked the professor, " that 
her knowledge of his readiness to put any one 
to death who gave him offense made her and 
all his subjects very careful of their speech 
when they addressed him-. He thought it a 
trifling matter to order a man's head to be cut 
off. It is written of him that one day he heard 
of a Jew astrologer who had said, ' The Caliph 
Haroun-al-Raschid will die within a year.' 

" Like all Arabs, he was very superstitious, 



Huzza foe Bagdad! 169 

and the Jew's prediction made him very melan- 
choly. Yahya, his vizier, tried in vain to com- 
fort him by making light of the astrologer's 
speech. Finding that his prince's sadness grew 
upon him, the vizier sent for the Jew, and, 
in the presence of Haroun, asked him, 'How 
long do you think 3^011 will live ? ' 

" Very promptly the foolish fellow replied, 
' My art teaches me that I shall live to a ripe 
old age.' 

" The vizier, turning to the caliph, coolly 
asked, 'Will the commander of the faithful 
order him to be immediately executed 1 ' 

" ' O certainly,' said Haroun. 

" At a sign from the vizier, Mezrur, the black 
executioner, was brought in with his naked 
cimeter in his right hand. Yahya pointed to 
the trembling Jew. Without an instant's delay 
Mezrur severed his head from his body. After 
which the pitiless vizier said to the caliph : 

" ' Your majesty sees the value of that fel- 
low's predictions.' 

" Haroun's melancholy vanished at once. His 



170 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

cunning vizier's cruel argument was undenia- 
ble." 

" But don't you suppose that the murder of 
that poor Jew troubled the caliph ?" asked Ronald. 

"Not in the least. He thought no more, not 
as much, indeed, of beheading a man than you 
would of cutting off the head of a chicken. He 
did not doubt that, as commander of the faith- 
ful, and the vicegerent of God, he had an un- 
questionable right to take the life of any one of 
his subjects w T ho might displease him, That 
right no man in his kingdom dared to dispute — 
perhaps did not dream of disputing. The 
caliph also had the right to depute absolute 
power to his grand vizier. Hence, when he 
ascended his throne, he gave his signet ring to 
Yahya, the first person he placed in that high 
office, saying, 'I invest you with the rule over 
my subjects. Rule them as you please, depose 
whom you will, and put whom you will into 
office.' Hence, if a caliph was indolent and self- 
indulgent, a vizier became the actual ruler of the 
people. Haroun, however, was by no means an 



Huzza for Bagdad! 171 

idle prince, but kept his keen eye constantly on 
the affairs of his vast empire, on his vizier as 
well as on his other officers." 

"Do you think, professor," asked Eonald, 
" that when King David caused Uriah to be 
killed, he felt like the caliph, that, as a king, 
he had a right to take a man's life ? " 

"I think not," replied Professor Benedict. 
" David, though a king, knaw God's law which 
said, ' Thou shalt do no murder.' And in the 
fifty-first Psalm, which was nis prayer of peni- 
tence for that crime, he said, ' Deliver me from 
bloodguiltiness.' He knew that God did not 
give even a king permission to trample on 
his law. If the caliph had been taught God's 
law, and not the Koran, he would have been too 
wise a man to believe that kings can commit 

murder and be innocent." 
11 



172 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTEE IX. 
FAREWELL TO THE ARAB CAMP. 

THE professor's stories of Caliph Haroun 
were interrupted by a sudden change in the 
direction of the Arabs' march. Without any 
reason apparent to our travelers, their wander- 
ing friends turned from south to the south-west, 
as if they meant to travel toward Damascus 
instead of Bagdad. The professor asked his 
brother what this change meant. The doctor 
replied : 

" I really do not know, unless it may be that 
they have missed their landmark and are in 
search of some sign by which to assure them- 
selves that they are going in the direction of 
some wells, around which they intend to pitch 
their tents to-night. They do not use the com- 
pass. They do not determine the course of 
their march by the sun, but trust for guidance 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 173 

to such way-marks as those plants and grasses 
which only grow in the neighborhood of wells. 
They will not go far to the west, but, having 
found their landmark, will turn southward 
again, as we shall soon see." 

The doctor's opinion proved to be correct. 
But the zigzag movement of the tribe brought 
into the view of our travelers the spectacle of 
a sick man seated on a camel with his body so 
bent down that his head was actually lower than 
his feet. At times the poor fellow nearly fell 
from the camel's back. Again and again he 
would have actually fallen but for the timely 
help of his sons and the women of his tent, 
who walked beside the animal. The boys looked 
with surprise and pity on this helpless sufferer. 
After he had passed Eonald exclaimed : 

" How cruel to make a sick man travel in 
that fashion ! " 

" These sons of the desert do not think so," 
the doctor said. " It is their fashion. The tribe 
is more than the one man, who is not much con- 
sidered when the interests of the whole camp 



174 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

are at stake. The poor wretch yonder is no 
doubt dying, and when we reach the camping 
spot he will be placed in his tent, his friends 
will sit round him and talk until he breathes 
his last, which he will probably do to-night or 
to-morrow." 

" But wont they try to cure him ? " asked 
Eichard. 

" Not at all. These Arabs of the plains have 
no doctors. They know nothing of medicines. 
Their mode of life from childhood is so simple 
and healthful that they are rarely sick; but if 
disease does attack them, or if they are badly 
wounded in battle, they usually die. If you 
have observed them closely you have noticed 
that there is not a man in this tribe over sixty 
years old, and very few have reached their 
fiftieth year. Most of their dead passed to their 
graves from their first attack of severe sickness. 
Hence, when any of them are seized by disease 
they do not look for recovery, but expect death 
with the stolid indifference of men who are 
trained to doggedly submit to fate." 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 175 

" But are they not afraid to die ? " inquired 
Ronald. 

" It seems not," replied the doctor. " If they 
are Mohammedans, as the Arabs of the cities 
and their vicinities are, they expect to cross the 
* bridge of the single hair' into Paradise, as their 
Koran teaches all true Mohammedans do; if 
they are pure Bedouins of the desert, their ideas 
of the Supreme Being are summed up in the 
phrase, < God is God.' But to such questions as 
'What is God?' 'Is there a divine law?' 
' Will men have to give account to God in the 
future life?' they give little or no thought. 
God to them is simply irresistible fate. It is a 
cheerless creed, if creed it can be called— but 
see ! As I told you it would, our line of march 
has changed again. The van of our tribe is 
again heading toward the south-east. Its leader 
has found the trail to the wells he was looking 
for." 

"I am right glad of that!" exclaimed Eich- 
ard ; " for I'm getting tired of this stupid life in 
the desert, where one has to see the same per- 



176 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

sons and things over and over again every day. 
I shall be as happy as a king when we get to old 
Bagdad." 

" If that is all you expect," said the professor, 
laughing, " your hope is not a very bright one, 
Master Eichard." 

"O, I meant as happy as good Haroun-al- 
Easchid, the caliph of Bagdad, when I said 
king : and if the ' Arabian Nights' Entertain- 
ments ' tells the truth, he must have been a very 
jolly fellow. He did as he pleased, and had lots 
of fun going around his city in the night, with 
his merry companion, Jaafer the Barmecide, in 
all sorts of disguises, and finding out on the sly 
what his people said and did. And didn't he 
have a good time when he had the fellows who 
talked against him in their houses brought into 
his palace the next day % How chop-fallen they 
must have been when they learned that the 
caliph had been a witness of their naughty acts 
and speeches, and how he must have laughed at 
their confusion ! " 

" Yes, Dick," replied Eonald ; " it was fun 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 177 

for him, but what was it for the poor fellows 
whom he confounded when they found them- 
selves at the mercy of a caliph who thought less 
of cutting off a man's head than of losing his 
dinner ? But I wonder how much of what the 
6 Arabian Nights ' says about the mighty Haroun 
is true. Please tell us, professor? " 

" No doubt there is a vein of truth running 
through the legends of that fascinating volume. 
Haroun, who ascended his throne about the 
year 788, when he was twenty-two years old, 
was, as historians tell us, ' the most accomplished, 
eloquent, and generous of all the caliphs of 
Bagdad.' But there were two sides to his char- 
acter. The legends of the ' Arabian Nights ' 
chiefly portray its attractive side ; history paints 
both. Shall I tell you of his first act after 
he returned from the mosque, in which he had 
offered the prayers proper to a new caliph just 
mounting his throne \ " 

" Do, professor ; we shall be glad to know 
what it, was," said Eonald. 

"Well, you must know, then, that while 



178 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Haroun was only a prince, and heir to the throne, 
his brother, El Hadi, the reigning caliph, sought 
to set him aside, and to make his own son, the 
youthful Prince Jaafar, caliph instead of Ha- 
roun. Prince Jaafar had a friend named ^Lbu 
Isma who favored El Hadi's scheme. As he 
and this prince were walking one day in the 
city of Isabad, they happened to meet Prince 
Haroun in a narrow archway. On seeing him, 
Abu Isma cried out : 

" ' Make way for the heir-apparent ! ' 

" Bowing with mock humility, Prince Haroun 
replied, 'I hear, and obey.' Then, stepping 
aside, he let Prince Jaafar pass by. 

" If Haroun had been as generous as the his- 
torians say he was, he would have overlooked 
this foolish speech of young Abu Isma after he 
found himself in undisputed possession of the 
throne. Instead of doing so, however, he no 
sooner had the scepter in his hands than he 
sent for his executioner, and said, ' Go, cut off 
the head of Abu Isma!'" 

"That was making poor Abu Isma pay a 



Fakewell to the Arab Camp. 179 

high price for saying a few foolish words. I 
don't call that a proof of either goodness or 
greatness in the mighty Haroun," said Ronald. 
"If I were made a king, I shouldn't like to 
stain my hands with blood on the day of my 
coronation." 

The professor then reminded his young pu- 
pils of what he had told them before, that many 
things which were really wicked did not appear 
so to Haroun, because he had been taught that, 
as caliph, he was the vicegerent of God, and 
therefore had a perfect right to take the life 
or property of any of his subjects. This view 
of himself naturally spoiled all the good there 
was in his nature. It made him proud, self- 
willed, capricious, passionate, and cruel. The 
wonder is, that it did not lead him to destroy 
the glory of his empire by putting men in 
power, not for their ability, but for their sub- 
serviency to his whims." 

"Yes," remarked the doctor; "it is surpris- 
ing, but Haroun, with all his caprice, rarely for- 
got that he was both a caliph and a man, and 



180 Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

that his glory and greatness depended very 
much on the kind of men who served him." 

" Your remark is just, my brother." said the 
professor, "and reminds me of the way in 
which Haroun made Ismail-ibu-Salih governor 
of Egypt." 

A misstep of the professor's horse caused him 
to stop speaking just at this point. As soon as 
the horse was reined up, and brought back to 
his usual quiet trot between the ponies of our 
young travelers, Ronald said, " Please, pro- 
fessor, tell us about Ismail ? " 

" Ismail-ibu-Salih," replied Mr. Benedict, 
" was the brother of a man who had greatly 
offended the caliph, and was kept a prisoner in 
his own house. One day the caliph sent his 
vizier's son, El Fadhl, to bring Ismail to his 
palace. ' Don't go,' said the brother who was 
in disgrace. 'They only want you to drink 
with them, and sing to them, and if you do so 
you are no brother of mine.' 

"But, being persuaded by El Fahdl, Ismail 
went. The caliph received him graciously, in- 



FaeewelL to the Arab Camp. 181 

vited him to dine at his table, and to drink wine 
with him. Ismail ate the dinner, but refused 
the wine, when the caliph cried out, ' By Allah ! 
I will not drink unless Ismail drinks with me.' 

" ' But, my lord, I have sworn to do nothing 
of the sort,' replied Ismail. 

" Nevertheless, perhaps through fear, he con- 
sented at last to drink wine. After this the 
caliph ordered his singing and dancing girls to 
amuse him and his guest. By and by Ismail 
grew merry. Then the caliph took a lute from 
the hands of one of the singing girls, threw a 
string of very precious stones over it, and 
placing it in Ismail's lap, said : 

" ' Come, sing us something, and expiate your 
oath out of this rosary ! ' 

" This valuable gift pleased Ismail, and, tak- 
ing the lute, he sang these lines : 

"'My hands to sin I never taught, 
My feet to faults have never led, 

Nor eye, nor ear, have ever brought 
A sinful thought into my head, 

And if I now my fate deplore, 

'Tis but the fate of folks before.' 



182 Boy Travelers in 'Arabia. 

" Something in the sentiment of this stanza, 
or in Ismail's singing, so pleased the caliph's 
fancy that he shouted, ' Bring me a lance ! ' It 
was brought. Affixing the banner of Egypt to 
its point, Haroun handed it to Ismail, an act 
which signified that he was appointed governor 
of the province of Egypt ! 

"This was certainly a capricious mode of ap- 
pointing a governor, but no doubt the caliph 
knew what the man's abilities were. It is re- 
corded that Ismail, after leaving his province, 
said, ' I ruled it for two years, and I loaded it 
with justice, and came away with five hundred 
thousand dinars [$1,250,000] in my pocket!' 
By justice this man probably meant such a rigid 
exercise of authority as kept down rebellion, for 
beyond that his rule must have been a constant 
and cruel robbery of his subjects, or he could 
not have carried away such an enormous sum of 
money. But the caliph did not care how much 
his people were robbed, provided they were 
kept in subjection to his rule." 

At this point in their conversation our trav- 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 183 

elers observed signs of a halt in the march of 
the Arabs; they had reached a well-watered 
wady, and were about to pitch the tents. 

The boys strongly insisted that evening that 
they were thoroughly tired of life in the desert. 
They had seen all of the life of the nomad tribe 
they cared to see, and were desirous, as Ronald 
said, "to see the city in which the famous 
Haroun-al-Raschid lived." Their tutors were 
.also quite weary of the monotony of desert life, 
and the doctor, having learned through Hassan 
that there would be little doubt of their striking 
a caravan somewhere in the lower Euphrates 
Yalley, on the route from Aleppo or Damascus 
to Bagdad, they gleefully resolved that they 
would start their own party the next day, under 
Hassan's guidance. 

The next morning they bade farewell to the 
sheikh of the tribe, and pushed on alone in high 
spirits. But when fairly out of sight of the 
Arab camp, and with nothing to be seen but 
the boundless sky above them, and the vast ex- 
panse of flowery plain around them, unbroken 



184 Boy Travelers in Arabia 

by objects of any kind, except here and there a 
solitary bird from some distant wady, the boys 
fairly shivered from a sense of loneliness such 
as they had never felt before. But Hassan's 
knowledge of the desert and God's good care 
brought them, after a few days, to the banks of 
the Euphrates near a place named Hit. Here 
they found a caravan, with merchandise on 
horses, camels, mules, and donkeys, bound to 
Bagdad. Joining these travelers, they, after 
four days' farther travel on the banks of the 
river, made unpleasant by cold and wet weather, 
arrived at a ferry by which travelers to Bagdad 
crossed the Euphrates. 

The presence of a ferry-boat on the Euphrates 
suggested to Eonald some random recollections 
of the march of Alexander the Great from 
Palestine to Babylon, and turning to the pro- 
fessor who had dismounted, and was standing 
by the head of his horse, he asked : 

"Can you tell me, professor, if this is the 
place at which Alexander crossed the Euphrates 
when he inarched his army to Babylon ? " 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 185 

" This is not a ford, Ronald/' replied Mr. 
Benedict, with a smile, " but a ferry, and it 
offers no special advantage to an army not very 
well supplied with pontoons, which, as I sup- 
pose, Alexander's w^as not. No, it was not here, 
but much farther up the river, at Thapsacus, 
which was in his time the only known ford on 
the Euphrates. It was not far from the point 
where we first struck the river, and is now 
called Rakka, as you may see by your map." 

Hearing the name of Alexander the Great 
mentioned, Richard, holding his pony by the 
bridle, had drawn near to his brother, and as 
the doctor w r as directing their attendants re- 
specting their approach to the ferry landing, 
and there was time for further conversation, he 
ventured to remark : 

"I little thought when I read the life of 
Alexander the Great that I should ever be so 
near the ground over which he marched as we 
are to-day. Why we shall cross his line of 
march on our way to Bagdad, shall we not ? " 

"That is not certain, Richard. At least I 



186 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

think it is not, because it is unknown whether 
he recrossed the Tigris after his great victory- 
over Darius at Arbela before he passed the site 
of Bagdad, which city did not exist in his time. 
If he did not, then, of course, we shall not cross 
his line of march. But if we visit the ruins of 
Babylon, then we shall assuredly stand on some 
of the historic ground over which he and his 
victorious Macedonians marched to reap one 
rich fruit of their victory in the surrender of 
the once mighty Babylon." 

"Well, professor," replied Richard, who was 
an enthusiastic admirer of Alexander, " I cannot 
help thinking that king Darius was a cowardly 
fellow as well as a poor soldier. Just think 
of his keeping his army under arms all the 
night before a battle for fear of being sur- 
prised! Couldn't he have posted sentinels to 
watch the Greeks ? £To wonder his men could 
not do their level best after being awake all 
night. Then what a soft cake he was not to 
rally his troops after the Greeks had charged 
through his line ! If I had been he, I would 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 187 

have closed in on Alexander's phalanx and 
fought it on its flanks and rear. Instead of do- 
ing that, he no sooner learned that his line was 
broken than he called for his horse, and, riding 
swiftly away, left his army to take care of itself. 
I despise such fellows as Darius ! " 

Both Ronald and the professor laughed out- 
right at Richard's fit of heroics. Ronald re- 
plied, in a somewhat satirical tone, ' Dick, don't 
forget the proverb which says, 'Brag is a 
good dog, but Holdfast is better.' It is much 
easier, you know, to brag when there is no 
danger than to hold fast when such desperate 
fellows as those Greeks were are pushing their 
spears through your friends like an avalanche 
of steel." 

Richard blushed under this rather sharp re- 
tort ; but keeping his temper he rejoined, with 
a modest air, " Yes, I know it is, but I do think, 
if I were a king and a general, I would rather 
die fighting than to show the white feather 
and run away from my troops, as the faint- 
hearted Darius did." 
12 



188 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

The professor helped Richard out of his little 
embarrassment, by saying, " I think you would, 
Richard, because I believe you have the genuine 
American grit, the mettle that makes a brave sol- 
dier. I suppose Darius was not naturally gifted 
with either military skill or personal physical 
courage. His training had not been such as to 
beget that higher moral courage by which force 
of will overcomes the fear which makes men 
cowards. He had lived on luxuries, had feasted 
his soul on flatteries, and he trusted to the vast 
number of men who followed his standards. 
Hence the fierce charges of Alexander's veter- 
ans terrified him, and he fled at the battle of 
Arbela, as he had previously done at the battle 
of Issus. He was not fitted for the place he 
filled; neither were his soft-hearted Persians a 
match for the men of iron who fought under 
the- skillful direction of Alexander, to whom 
fighting was almost as natural as breathing. I 
loathe, pity, and despise Darius. I look with 
wonder on Alexander, but I despise his char- 
acter, also, because it was cruel and selfish to 



Farewell to the Arab Camp. 189 

the last degree. But the doctor calls us to the 
bank of the river : let us move toward the 
ferry-landing ! " 

His exploits were great ; yet he made war, 
not to benefit either his own country or the 
people whom he conquered, but to gratify his 
own restless soul, which delighted in the excite- 
ments of the march and of the battle-field, and 
to cover his own name with glory. 



190 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTEE X. 
A SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN BAGDAD. 

WHILE our travelers were waiting to go on 
board the big ferry-boat in which they 
were to cross the Euphrates, the boys were 
amused by seeing two Turkish ladies, with 
black veils, dressed in striped calico sacks and 
European boots, waiting for their turn to enter 
the boat. Richard nudged his brother's arm 
and said : 

" Look, Ronald, at those queer creatures ! 
If it were not for their heads, one might take 
them to be two bags with live animals tied up 
inside." 

" Poor things ! " replied Ronald ; " they 
have been traveling four weeks in those hooded 
panniers you see on the back of yonder gaunt 
mule. What a shaking up they must have had 
every day ! The professor says they are the 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 191 

wives of Turkish officers, and are on their way 
to join their husbands in Bagdad." 

" Well, I hope they will have a better time 
when they get there than they have had on 
their journey," rejoined Richard. " But we 
must hurry up ; the doctor is calling us to move 
on to the boat." 

It took the crowded boat some twenty min- 
utes to reach the opposite bank, at a place 
named Seglawieh, which they were told was 
forty miles from Bagdad. They had been de- 
layed so long in crossing the river that it was 
after noon before they had their baggage at 
hand and their attendants ready for a start. 
Desirous as they were to reach Bagdad as 
quickly as possible, they, nevertheless, found it 
necessary to encamp for the night in a pleasant 
grove at no great distance from the river, that 
the doctor's gun might procure them some 
birds for their now scanty larder. There was 
larger game in the adjacent wood, on the edge 
of which a number of wild boars had put in a 
momentary appearance. But, not being dis- 



192 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

posed to venture on the dangerous sport of the 
boar hunt, they were content with the francolins 
and a couple of hares with which the doctor 
filled his game-bag. 

After supper that afternoon the professor 
said to Richard : " You were wishing this morn- 
ing that you might walk on soil once trodden 
by Alexander, the ambitious Macedonian con- 
queror. Do you know that you are now in the 
birth-land of a greater than Alexander ! " 

" A greater than Alexander ! " exclaimed 
Richard, in an impassioned tone. " Why, pro- 
fessor, I did not know that there had ever been 
a greater soldier than the conqueror of the 
world." 

" I did not say a greater soldier, but a greater 
man. I referred to Abraham, the head of the 
Jewish race. We are now in Mesopotamia, 
which was his native land. The Greeks called 
it the land between the rivers, because it is 
principally situated between the Tigris and the 
Euphrates, where we now are. Abraham's 
early home was probably farther south, some- 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 193 

where within what was afterward called Baby- 
lonia, when God bade him quit his kindred and 
travel to a region of which he was to know 
nothing until God should lead him into it." 

Ronald was delighted at the thought of being 
in the early home of the greatest of the Jewish 
patriarchs, and only regretted that there were 
no traces to be found of the precise spots on 
which he had fed his flocks and from which he 
drove his camels as an inspired pilgrim travel- 
ing he knew not whither. But Richard did not 
share his brother's enthusiasm for Abraham. 
He mused awhile on what the professor had 
said, and finally said : 

" I don't understand, professor, how you can 
prove that Abraham was a greater man than 
Alexander." 

" Abraham, my dear boy, was master of him- 
self ; Alexander was not. In a fit of wrath lie 
killed his beloved friend, Clitus, and by drunk- 
enness shortened his own life. Abraham was 
governed by the will of God ; Alexander by his 
own cruel, unresting selfishness. Hence, by so 



194 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

much as self-mastery is greater than the mas- 
tery of others, and as obedience to God is 
nobler than obedience to selfish passion, by so 
much was Abraham greater than Alexander." 

Richard could not reply to this wise putting 
of the case. He only bit his lips and looked 
askance at Mr. Benedict. He frowned on 
Ronald when he replied : 

"That must be so, professor, for the Bible 
says, 'He that is slow to anger is better than 
the mighty ; and he that ruleth his spirit than 
he that taketh a city.' I'm sure I would rather 
be such a good man as Abraham than such a 
heartless conqueror as Alexander." 

Our travelers broke camp after an early 
breakfast the next morning, and pushed on as 
quickly as possible through a pleasant undulat- 
ing country, and over a soil which, though 
gravelly, was brightened by numerous stretches 
of grass. 

" ~No fear of losing our way here," said Rich- 
ard, shortly after starting ; " we can follow this 
line of telegraph-poles, which, I suppose, we will 



A Sleepless Xight in Bagdad. 



195 



find all the way to Bagdad, and shall need no 
better guide." 

The doctor told them he believed the poles 
did reach to that city, and that if the road 




HERON. 



proved good all the way, they should, without 
doubt, reach Bagdad by the afternoon of the 
next day. 

"Huzza for Bagdad, then!" shouted Kich- 
ard ; and, urging his pony into a canter, he rode 
on considerably ahead of his party. 



196 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

In the afternoon they reached a pretty sheet 
of water which swarmed with water-birds. 
Pelicans, with snow-white plumage, and colored 
wild-fowl, floated lazily on its quiet surface, and 
white herons stood silent and motionless on its 
shores. Not far from this lake they encamped 
for the night, near the tents of some not very 
attractive Arabs, who, despite their apparent 
poverty, were uncommonly religious. The doc- 
tor told the boys that when Lady Blunt's party 
was in their camp, their sheikh, whose name was 
Mohammed, while talking to her ladyship sud- 
denly rose from his carpet to his knees, and re- 
peated his prayers. After finishing his devo- 
tions, he turned to the lady's dragoman, angrily 
demanding to know why he, too, had not said his 
prayers. At the same time another old Arab 
was heard praying outside the tent, but stop- 
ping every now and then to shout at a horse or 
donkey, or to throw a stick at a disorderly Cow. 
These Arabs belonged to a very fanatical sect of 
Mohammedans, whose devotions were evidently 
more on the lips than from the heart. 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 197 

The Arabs did not disturb our travelers, 
who, after passing a quiet night, resumed their 
journey, fully expecting to reach Bagdad 
early in the afternoon. But not far from their 
camp they found themselves close to a vast ruin 
which the Arabs called the Tower of Nimrod. 
Of course they stopped to examine it. It was a 
mound of sunburned brick rising to a great 
height, and, as Lady Blunt observed of it, it 
seems to be solid, and one cannot conceive for 
what use it was designed except, as the Bible 
says of the Tower of Babel, to reach to heaven. 
"But," said the doctor, "since the tower of 
Babel was not built here, but in Babylonia, it 
must have had other uses. Layard supposed 
it to have formed part of an immense wall of 
defense built in distant ages from the Tigris to 
the Euphrates to keep off the attacks of armies 
coming from the north." Our party spent con- 
siderable time wandering around it, picking up 
bits of blue pottery, while the two lads found 
much amusement in watching the movements 
of the myriads of the blue rock pigeons which 



198 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

had built their nests in its countless holes and 
hollows. Of course the doctor's insatiate game- 
bag did not fail to carry away a considerable 
number of those dwellers among the ruins for 
their noonday dinner. 

Leaving this vast heap of ruins our travelers 
pressed onward toward the Tigris and Bagdad. 
But their progress was much retarded by the 
muddiness of the road ; so much so that it was 
drawing toward evening when they drew nigh 
to the city. Then they found themselves 
among horsemen, and riders on white asses, 
hurrying toward the city. Turks in flowing 
robes and broad turbans ; Persians in high black 
caps and close-fitting tunics; the Bokhara pil- 
grim in his white head- dress and way-worn gar- 
ments ; the Bedouin chief in his tasseled keffie 
and striped aba ; Bagdad ladies with their scar- 
let and white draperies fretted with threads of 
gold, and their black horse-hair veils concealing 
even their eyes ; Persian women wrapped in 
their unsightly garments, and Arab girls in 
their simple blue shirts. All these formed a 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 199 

motley crowd flowing toward the gates of Bag- 
dad. The boys gazed at the scene with wonder 
in their eyes, and Richard exclaimed : 

"That is an Oriental picture, and no mis- 
take ! " 

But our party found they had made a mis- 
take, in that they had not given instructions to 
Hassan either to keep up with them or to 
meet them in the eastern side of the city. 
Hence they had to wait by the way-side until 
their mules and camels came up with their bag- 
gage. And when they found themselves in a 
street of low, shabby-looking mud hovels, on 
the bank of the Tigris, it was quite dark. 
There they halted, when the doctor said : 

" This is Bagdad ! " 

" This the city of the caliph ! " exclaimed 
Eonald, contemptuously. 

Yes, that was the part of Bagdad on the west 
bank of the Tigris. As it was too late to cross 
the river that night, they were obliged to put 
up in a miserable khan built of brick. It was 
some thirteen feet high, with numerous cells 



200 Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

about eleven feet wide and eight feet in depth. 
It was filthy and reeking with the odor of nu- 
merous hides stored in its corners. But here, 
shut in by a strong door and guarded by a rest- 
less old Arab, they were obliged to spend the 
night. After several vain attempts to sleep 
they began a long talk about Bagdad in the 
days of its splendor, and about its most famous 
caliph, al-Rasehid. 

" In the ' Arabian Nights,' " observed Ron- 
ald, "it is said that Jaafar, the Barmecide, 
used to go about Bagdad with the caliph in dis- 
guise at night. Can you tell us, professor, why 
he was called the Barmecide, and whether there 
really was such a man as Jaafar except in those 
stories ? " 

The professor said that the Jaafar of the sto- 
ries was an historical character, and was called 
the Barmecide because he belonged to a family 
named Barmek, which was not of Arab but of 
Persian descent. His father, Yahya, was Ha- 
roun's vizier, but for whose assistance at the time 
of the death of El Hadi, his predecessor, he would 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 201 

have failed to gain the throne. Jaafar was 
Haroun's secretary. He was a very eloquent, 
genial, scholarly man, and for some fifteen years 
stood higher in his favor than any other man. 
But the way in which the caliph treated him 
and his relatives at last left a very black stain 
upon Haroun's memory. In spite of the mil- 
itary and other glories of his reign, his dealings 
with the Barmecides compel us to believe that 
he was not the " good al-Baschid " of those fa- 
mous tales, but a cruel, false man, whose better 
qualities were sadly obscured by his mean and 
wicked deeds. 

These remarks kindled the curiosity of the 
boys, and they begged the professor to beguile 
the wearisome hours by telling them the story 
of Jaafar and his Barmecide friends. Yielding 
to their request, he told them the following sad, 
romantic story : 

" Haroun was so attached to Yahya and his 
sons, Jaafar and El Fadhl, that he gave them and 
their friends the highest offices in his empire, 
and heaped so many gifts upon them that they 



202 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

became the owners of vast estates and lived in 
a style as grand almost as that of their royal 
master. His regard for them was so great that 
it seemed for a long time as if nothing could 
ever disturb it. But this made the men of true 
Arab blood jealous of the Barmecide family, 
and they finally took steps to excite the caliph 
against them. 

" They began by sending him an anonymous 
letter, in which it was said : ' Lo ! the sons of 
Yahya are kings like thee. Thy behests are al- 
tered by them, but theirs are implicitly obeyed. 
Jaafar has built a palace in the like of which 
no Persian or Indian ever lived. The floor 
thereof is set with pearls and rubies, and the 
ceiling thereof is of amber and aloes wood ; we 
even fear lest he may inherit thy kingdom 
when thou art hidden in the grave. None but 
an arrogant slave dare so vie with^his lord.' 

" This cunning attempt to make the caliph 
jealous of his favorites was followed by a sort 
of protest against them because they were known 
to belong to a sect of heretical Mussulmans. 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 203 

" This appeal to Haroun's religious prefer- 
ences was followed by an act of disobedience on 
Jaafar' s part that fanned the spark of jealousy 
which the anonymous letter had kindled. ( Go 
kill Abdallah the rebel,' said the caliph one day 
to Jaafar, who let the condemned man escape. 
This act was at once reported to the king, who, 
sending for his secretary, said to him : ' "What 
has become of Abdallah ? ' 

" ' He is in prison,' replied the unwary Jaafar. 

" ' "Will you swear it by my life ? ' demanded 
al-Raschid. 

" Seeing he was betrayed, Jaafar replied : ' O, 
commander of the faithful, I let him escape 
because I believed him to be innocent.' 

" ' You have done well. I approve your ac- 
tion,' rejoined the caliph, with seeming good 
feeling. But Jaafar was no sooner out of hear- 
ing than he added : ' Allah kill me if I do not 
kill you ! ' 

" Haroun's jealousy of the pomp and riches of 

Jaafar became more intense every time he saw 

the splendor of his attendants or listened, as he 
13 



204 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

now took delight in doing, to the envious re- 
marks of his enemies. Neither Jaafar nor his 
father suspected the change in his feelings until 
one day Yahya, his vizier, entered the caliph's 
apartments unannounced, as he had long been 
in the habit of doing. He saluted his majesty, 
who, instead of his usual friendly response, 
turned to his physician, who was present, and 
asked : 

" ' Does any one come into your room with- 
out permission % ' 

" ' No,' the physician replied. 

" ' Then why do they come into ours without 
asking ? ' rejoined the angry monarch, gazing 
fiercely on his astonished vizier. • 

" Yahya made a humble reply. Haroun pre- 
tended to be sorry for what he had said. Yahya 
left, hoping that his master's rebuke was only a 
freak of temper. But when on his next visit to 
the palace he found that neither the guards nor 
the slaves treated him as formerly, he began to 
feel that he had for some unknown reason lost 
the favor of his royal master. 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 205 

"Zobeide, the caliph's favorite wife, discov- 
ered at this juncture that Yahja's son Jaaf ar had 
secretly taken Haroun's sister Abbasah to wife, 
and that she had borne him two sons. She 
hated Jaafar, and therefore told the caliph of 
his marriage. Haroun was enraged. His 
haughty pride was wounded because a Barme- 
cide had dared to marry one of his royal race. 
When Zobeide left him he sent for Mezrur, and 
said to him, in a bitter tone : 

" ' Mezrur, to-night, when it is dark, bring 
me ten masons and two servants.' 

" Mezrur did as he was told. Al-Easchid led 
him into the apartment of his sister. Then, 
without saying a word to the lady, he ordered 
the servants to cut off her head, put her body 
into a box, dig a hole to bury her, and restore 
the floor to its former appearance. When this 
horrid deed was done he said to Mezrur : 

" ' Take these people and give them their 
hire ! ' 

" Mezrur understood by these words that he 
was to tie up the luckless masons and servants 



206 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

in sacks laden with stones, and throw them into 
the Tigris. This he did forthwith. Yet the 
caliph's rage was not appeased. 

" The next night he ordered Mezrur to bring 
Jaafar to his palace. The executioner obeyed, 
led the unhappy man into a tent which had been 
set up in the court of the palace, and said to 
him : { Your time has come. The prince of 
the faithful has ordered me to cut off your 
head and take it to him at once.' 

" Jaafar wept, and offered Mezrur an immense 
sum if he would let him escape. ' I cannot,' the 
executioner replied. Jaafar again wept, begged 
to be taken to the caliph, or that Mezrur would 
go in his behalf and ask Haroun to see him. 
Mezrur, moved by the man's tears, went to the 
monarch, but, finding nothing would satisfy him 
but his old friend's head, he returned. Seeing 
Jaafar on his knees, he quickly severed his head 
from his body, seized it by the beard, and threw 
it at his monarch's feet. 

" Still the wrath of the prince of the faithful 
was not satisfied. He sent for the two sons of 



A Sleepless Night in Bagdad. 207 

Jaafar, had those innocent, beautiful boys killed 
and buried beside the body of their mother, and 
then caused a thousand of the Barmecide family 
to be put to death ! 

" When Yahya, who was in prison, was told 
of Jaafar's death, he said, ' So will God kill his 
son.' ' But,' said the messenger, ' he has ru- 
ined your house, too.' The wretched father re- 
joined, ' So will God ruin his house.' When 
Haroun heard of these terrible words his super- 
stitious and guilty soul was startled, and he 
said, very sadly, ' I never knew Yahya to say 
any thing that did not turn out to be true.' 

" He was still more troubled when this once 
beloved vizier died in prison and his jailer found 
a paper on his person on which these ominous 
words were written : l The accuser has gone on 
before to the tribunal, and the accused shall fol- 
low soon. The magistrate will be that just 
Judge who never errs and needs no witnesses.' 

" After the death of Yahya and the massacre 
of the Barmecides the caliph's life was wretched. 
His popularity waned so much that he removed 



208 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

his court from Bagdad to Kakka. Insurrections 
disturbed his empire and filled him with har- 
assing anxieties. His later days were miserable 
indeed. Just before he died he ordered a capt- 
ured rebel to be hacked to pieces alive before 
his eyes by a common butcher. This, says one 
of his biographers, was his last public act. 
Shortly after, being restless, wretched, and faint, 
he rallied strength enough to say : 

" ' Descended from a race so great, 
I firmly bear the hardest fate.' 

And then, in the presence of his vizier, the ter- 
rible Mezrur, and one or two other officers of 
his court, he passed into the presence of that 
dreaded Judge to whose bar the much-wronged 
Yahya had summoned him a few years before." 



Walking about Bagdad. 209 



CHAPTEE XL 

WALKING ABOUT BAGDAD. 

EARLY in the morning, after their arrival in 
Bagdad, our young travelers sprung from 
their bed of skins in the cheerless old barrack 
called a "khan," rubbed their eyes, yawned 
through lack of sleep, and looked quite woe- 
begone. Richard, ever ready to utter his com- 
plaints, was the first to speak. Said he to Ron- 
ald, in a whining tone : 

" If this wretched khan is the best lodging- 
place we can find in Bagdad, I am for getting 
out of it as quick as we can." 

Ronald, to whom the night had been as un- 
pleasant as to his brother, was disposed to take 
his discomfort in better humor, and replied : 
"Don't quarrel with Bagdad until you have 
seen more of it. We have come a long journey 
to see it, and I want to stay long enough to look 



210 Boy Traveleks in Akabia. 

round a bit. May be we shall find that we have 
seen its worst side first." 

« Very sensibly said, Master Konald," re- 
marked the doctor. " We are hardly inside 
Bagdad yet. The city once stretched along 
both banks of the Tigris, but is now chiefly on 
its east side. After we have got some coffee 
from a coffee-house which is near this khan, we 
will eat our breakfast and then cross the river. 
I have letters to the English consul. We will 
find him, and may be he will tell us where to 
find better quarters. Then we will go about 
and see if Bagdad retains any of the beauty 
which made it famous when your favorite Ca- 
liph Haroun lived in its palaces and wandered 
at night through its streets and bazars." 

" That's good news, doctor," replied Kichard, 
in a more cheerful tone. "I'm ready for the 
coffee, come what may afterward." 

The old Arab who had charge of the khan 
procured them some coffee. Their own stores 
supplied them with food. Breakfast over, they 
sallied forth from the khan, crossed the Tigris 



Walking about Bagdad. 211 

over its bridge of boats, and inquired of a Turk- 
ish soldier whom they met for the house of the 
English consul. 

Of course, the boys were very eager to see 
the ancient city which had so filled their imag- 
inations with images of greatness like fairy-land, 
of matchless palaces and grand mosques with 
immense domes sparkling in the sun, and bazars 
filled with the treasures of the East, and crowd- 
ed with rich merchants. Instead of this they 
beheld unpaved, muddy streets, narrow as lanes, 
and winding like cow-paths. Mean, low houses, 
built of yellow bricks, but no windows in their 
outer walls, stood on the sides of these lanes. 
No really fine buildings met the eye, no stately 
palaces, no grand mosques, but only here and 
there a dwarfed minaret, and a shabby, almost 
deserted, bazar. Even the famous gardens of 
the once mighty Haroun could not be traced. 
Before they reached the consul's house the 
spell with which the "Arabian Nights' Enter- 
tainments" had invested Bagdad was broken. 
Instead of being delighted they were disgusted. 



212 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

The Bagdad of their dreams had shared the fate 
of Aladdin's palace when the genii of the won- 
derful lamp removed it to a distant region ; and 
the spectacle of a city once great and beautiful, 
but now sitting disrobed by the iron hand of 
war, by the rude hand of the Turk who destroys 
all he touches, and by the recent loss of com- 
merce, had taken its place. They were, indeed, 
sadly disappointed. Kichard vented his spleen 
by saying, in an almost surly tone : 

" I wish I was on Boston Common, which is 
worth ten thousand Bagdads." 

Their approach to the consul's residence, 
which stood in the midst of a garden on the 
bank of the Tigris, and was a pleasant old man- 
sion, prevented any reply to this resentful 
speech. The consul received them courteously, 
and after reading the doctor's letters of intro- 
duction, insisted on their making his mansion 
their home during their stay. This unexpected 
invitation the doctor at first declined ; but when 
the consul insisted with evident sincerity on 
being their host, he and the professor finally 



Walking about Bagdad. 213 

consented, very much to the relief of the boys, 
who shrank from spending another night in a 
Bagdad khan. 

Lady Blunt, in her narrative, describes this 
consul's residence as a beautiful old house, built 
round two large court-yards, and having a large 
frontage on the river. " It is," she says, " by 
far the pleasantest place in Bagdad. There is 
a delightful terrace overlooking the water, with 
an alley of old orange-trees and a kiosk, or sum- 
mer-house, and steps leading down to a little 
dock where the consular boats are moored. In- 
side, the house is decorated in the Persian taste 
of the last century, with deep fretted ceilings, 
walls paneled in minute cabinet-work, some- 
times inlaid with looking-glass, sometimes richly 
gilded. Only the dining-room is studiously En- 
glish, its decorations forming a theme of admi- 
ration for the people of the city who come to 
pay their respects to the consul." No wonder, 
therefore, that, as soon as our travelers were 
left to themselves in one of its stately parlors, 
Richard gleefully exclaimed : 



214 - Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 

" After being in that black hole of a khan, I 
feel as if I had been let out of Dante's Purga- 
tory and led* into his Paradise. Hurrah for the 
English consul ! " 

" Hush, Dick," said Ponald ; " the consul will 
think you are crazy if he hears you. I feel as 
glad as you do, and could easily fancy that we 
have lighted on Aladdin's palace; yet I don't 
think it best to act like a bedlamite." 

" I am not mad, most noble Ronald," retorted 
Pichard, in a tone of pretended mockery, " but 
only so glad that I feel as I suppose your friend 
Aladdin did, when the genii of the ring brought 
back his palace with his bride in it, after it had 
been carried away at the command of the cun- 
ning old fellow who had captured the genii of 
the lamp." 

"Come, young gentlemen," said the professor, 
laughing, " I think I must cut short your 
learned disputation about nothing, and invite 
you to join me and my brother in a walk about 
the streets of this once famous city." 

" I hear and obey, most noble professor," 



Walking about Bagdad. 215 

rejoined Kichard, bowing with affected rever- 
ence. 

"So do I, sir," added Konald, preparing to 
follow his teacher; "but I really believe that 
somebody must have given some hasheesh to 
my brother this morning." 

"He is only intoxicated with gladness," re- 
plied the professor. "Perhaps the air of this 
old city will sober him. Let us go. The doctor 
is waiting for us in the court-yard." 

Our travelers now went out to walk about the 
city of the once mighty caliphs. The two boys, 
whose high anticipations had been already trans- 
formed into disappointments by what they had 
seen in the morning, could find no attractive 
or strange spectacles to excite their wonder. 
Indeed, they saw but little to attract them, be- 
sides the many-colored and Oriental costumes 
of the people, such as they had seen the even- 
ing before. Bagdad itself was but a dying 
city, situated in a swamp. Its old walls had 
been demolished a few years before by order 
of Midhat Pasha, its then governor. That 



216 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

blundering Turk had, at great cost, also dug a 
huge canal to irrigate the lands around Bagdad. 
But his bungling engineers had so miscalculated 
the levels of the river and the land, that when 
the water from the river was let into the canal, it 
flooded the country and transformed the site of 
the city into a swampy island. Hence our trav- 
elers saw scarcely any thing to suggest its former 
glory. The only thing that really pleased the 
boys during their stroll was a crowd listening to 
an Arab story-teller in a coffee-shop. He was 
telling a story about Haroun-al-Raschid, which 
the doctor translated to them as they walked 
back to the consul's hospitable home, as follows : 

" One night Haroun, the mighty caliph, was 
restless, and said to his attendants : 

" ' I cannot sleep ; my heart is contracted. I 
know not what to do.' 

" Mezrur, his executioner, who was present, 
laughed outright at the caliph's nervous fancy. 
His dangerous master, offended by his laughter, 
asked, in a sharp voice : 

" ' Dost thou laugh at me, or art thou mad % ' 



Walking about Bagdad 217 

" ' No, by Allah, commander of the faithful ! ' 
replied Mezrur. ' I could not help it. It was 
the sudden thought of a man whom I saw yes- 
terday amusing a crowd on the banks of the 
Tigris that made me laugh, for which I humbly 
beg your majesty's pardon.' 

" ' Bring him in here at once ! ' cried the 
uneasy monarch. 

" Away went Mezrur in search of the wag. 
Having found the fellow, he said : 

" ' Promise to give me two thirds of what you 
may receive, and I will take you to the caliph.' 

" After wrangling awhile over the proposal, 
the man gave his promise, and was led into the 
presence of the king. 

" ' If you do not make me laugh,' said al- 
Raschid, ' I will strike you three times with 
this leathern bag.' 

" The funny fellow did his best to say humor- 
ous things, but could not bring even a smile to 
the caliph's lips. 

" ' Now, then,' said Haroun, c you have de- 
served the beating.' 



218 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

"Then seizing the bag, which was filled with 
pebbles, he gave the jester a blow which made 
him howl. Before he could repeat the blow, 
the discomfited wag begged permission to speak. 
It was given, and then he told of the bargain 
he had made with Mezrur, and prayed him to 
give the remaining blows to him. The second 
blow being given to Mezrur, he cried : 

" ' O, prince of the faithful, one third is quite 
enough for me ; give him two thirds ! ' 

" The humor of Mezrur calmed his master's 
temper, and so tickled his fancy that he burst 
into a merry laugh, and dismissed both Mezrur 
and the wag with liberal gifts." 

This story amused the young travelers great- 
ly. After their hearty laughter had subsided, 
the professor said : 

" Now let me tell you an incident which 
illustrates the better side of Haroun's self -con- 
tradictory character. To one of his great ban- 
quets he one day invited a blind poet, named 
Abu Atahiyeh. At the close of the feast he 
said to this man: 



Walking about Bagdad. 219 

" ' Give us a description of the happiness and 
prosperity which we enjoy.' 

" To this command Abu replied by singing : 

" ' Right happy may thy life be made, 
Safe in the lofty castle's shade ; ' 

" < Bravo ! ' cried the caliph. The poem then 
continued : 

" ' And every morn and eve, may all 
Thy every slightest wish forestall.' 

" l Excellent ! ' exclaimed the pleased mon- 
arch. Abu sang again : 

" ' But when thy latest struggling sighs, 
With rattlings in the breast arise, 
Then shalt thou of a surety know 
'Tis all deception here below.' 

"This sudden presentation of a coming dis- 
enchantment and eclipse of all his glory moved 
the caliph to tears. El Fadhl, one of his secre- 
taries, thinking perchance that his tears might 
be followed by a furious burst of passion, spoke 
sternly to the singer, saying : 

" ' The commander of the faithful sent for 
14 



220 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

thee to amuse him, and thou hast only made 
him sad.' 

" But the caliph was really moved, for the 
moment, to sober thought by the words of the 
blind poet, and he replied : ' Nay, leave him 
alone ; he only saw that we were growing blind, 
and he did not wish to make us more so.' " 

" I wonder he did not call Mezrur to cut off 
the poor fellow's head," observed Eichard. 

" Perhaps he would have done so," replied 
the professor, " if the song had not awakened 
the better side of his nature, and called into 
activity that sentimental piety for which at times 
he was remarkable. Besides, he was himself a 
poet, and always paid great deference to men of 
talent, and this may have also helped to keep 
his fiery temper in abeyance." 

On their arrival at the consul's residence they 
were told that he was busy in his office, but 
would soon join them in the spacious apartment 
to which they were led by the servant. After 
seating themselves around the fire, which, as the 
weather was disagreeably cold, they found quite 



Walking about Bagdad. 221 

comfortable, the boys made some rather uncom- 
plimentary remarks on the caliph Haroun's 
whims. The doctor, hearing their opinions so 
freely expressed, said : " It is well for you, young 
gentlemen, that the caliph is a dead king. 
"Were this his palace, and were he alive and 
within ear-shot of your talk, it is not unlikely 
that Mezrur would make each of you a head 
shorter than you are in less than five minutes. 
But let me give you another picture from his 
busy life which will show you that, with all his 
cruel whimsicalities, he could sometimes treat 
even a practical joker with leniency. Like most 
monarchs of his time, he had a court jester, with 
whom, in his hours of ease, he often had merry 
disputes. The name of this jester was Abu 
Nawwas. On one occasion the wag, having 
quoted the maxim, 'An excuse is often worse 
than the crime,' the caliph denied its truth. 
Then the jester said : ' I will convince your 
majesty of its truth before this night is over.' 
6 If you don't,' rejoined al-Raschid, grimly, ' I 
will cut off your head.' 



222 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

"A little later the prince of the faithful 
entered his harem in a very surly mood. To his 
surprise he was greeted on its threshold with a 
kiss from a rough, bearded face. i Bring me a 
light ! Bring Mezrur, my executioner ! ' shouted 
the enraged caliph. 

" The light being instantly brought, revealed 
the merry face of Abu Nawwas. 

" ' What on earth do you mean by such con- 
duct % ' demanded the caliph. 

" ' I humbly beg your majesty's pardon, but I 
thought it was your majesty's favorite wife,' 
answered the wag. 

" ' What ! ' shrieked Haroun, ' your excuse is 
worse than the crime.' 

" * Just what I promised to prove,' said Abu 
JNawwas, fleeing from the apartment, closely 
followed by one of the imperial slippers." 

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Konald. "Abu 
JNawwas was no fool. Yet I would prefer being 
the caliph's cook to filling the office of his jester. 
Jesting with such a king must have been like 
tossing and catching very sharp knives." 



Walking about Bagdad. 223 

"Well, gentlemen, how do you like the 
' Abode of Peace,' as Bagdad was named in the 
days of its former magnificence % " said the 
English consul, who now entered the room with- 
out being announced. He had caught the sub- 
stance of Ronald's remark, and it had suggested 
the words of his friendly greeting. 

" Our young gentlemen here are entirely dis- 
enchanted by what they have seen of it," replied 
the doctor, laughing. " They came expecting 
to find the Bagdad of the caliphate in the days 
of its glory. They do not find it, and it requires 
all the faith they have in me and their tutor to 
induce them to think that this is really the city 
where the so-called 'good Haroun-al-Raschid ' 
once reigned in splendor and great glory." 

" They are not the first of modern travelers 
who have been disappointed with our poor 
Bagdad," replied the consul, smiling. " But if 
you will walk to the dining-room and take some 
dinner, we will try to find something in Bagdad 
that may interest them to-morrow." 

After dinner the courteous consul led them 



224 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

out to the terrace which overlooked the Tigris, 
saying, " It is quite mild this afternoon, and you 
may be interested in seeing somewhat of the 
Bagdad people on the river." 

With this proposal they were, of course, well 
pleased. Following him through the walk, 
which was lined with rows of orange trees, they 
went down to the dock, where they saw a pretty 
little steam yacht with a number of boats 
securely moored. The water of the broad river 
was almost motionless, and numerous little round 
boats were skimming about upon the stately 
stream. After glancing at the lively scene a 
moment or two the impulsive Richard ex- 
claimed : 

" What queer looking boats those are ! They 
look more like wash-tubs than real boats." 

The consul told him that they were not made 
like English or American boats, but were con- 
structed of reeds coated with bitumen, and that 
being very light they answered the purpose of 
the people very well, as one could see by their 
swift movements. "I think," he said, "that 



Walking about Bagdad. 225 

they are quite as useful to their owners as the 
canoes of your Indians are to them." 

The consul's yacht, which had just steamed 
up the river, had not yet had her fires put out. 
It was still light enough for a short excursion ; 
and the boys gladly accepted the offer of their 
liberal-minded host to go on board and steam 
a few miles on. The trim yacht was speed- 
ily prepared, and having passed the bridge of 
boats, which was just above the consul's resi- 
dence, she glided past the eastern bank of the 
river sufficiently near to give them a good view 
of its principal buildings. 

" That is the governor's palace," said the con- 
sul, pointing to a mean-looking structure just 
above the bridge. 

" That a palace ! " exclaimed Richard. " I 
don't see how any one except a jester, like Abu 
Nawwas, could call that rough-looking house a 
palace." 

" Perhaps they keep the splendor that is sup- 
posed to belong to a palace inside," replied 
Ronald, laughing. "See those richly dressed 



226 Boy Travelers in- Arabia. 

fellows lolling and smoking on their divans just 
within those windows!" 

" Those gentlemen compose the household of 
the pasha, who is the most conspicuous person- 
age you see in that group of smokers," ob- 
served the consul, as the yacht glided past the 
limits of the palace grounds. 

" Well, here is something funny ! " said Eon- 
aid. " It looks like the half of a mosque. You 
can see into the very recess of its dome, which 
looks as if some genii had cut off its outer 
half and carried it off to the home of the 
Afreets." 

" That mosque," said the consul, " has been un- 
dermined by the river, which is the genii which 
has gulped down about one half of the original 
structure, and will, if the lazy Turks do not 
bestir themselves, swallow the remainder after a 
few years.. You see its many little chambers 
for prayer all open to wind and rain. Once it 
was a grand edifice, as you may judge from the 
colored cupolas and minarets which still re- 



Walking about Bagdad. 227 

Presently the attention of our party was called 
to a pine-shaped cone of snowy whiteness which 
rose into the air on the western bank of the 
stream. " That pillar will interest you, young 
gentlemen," said the consul, as he pointed 
toward it. " It is part of the tomb of 
Zobeide, the favorite wife of Haroun - al - Eas- 
chid, of whom you have read in your ' Arabian 
Nights' Tales.'" 

After gazing intently awhile on this monu- 
ment to the memory of a lady whose very name 
quickened their imaginations, and called up 
a crowd of romantic associations, Richard 
nudged his brother's arm, and whispered, "I 
say, Ronald, we can brag about that when we 
get back to Boston, for we shall be able to say 
to our set, ' We have seen what none of you 
fellows ever saw, and most likely never will see 
— Queen Zobeide's tomb ! ' " 

Back of and beyond the half-ruined mosque 
and the pasha's palace, our party saw, between 
the palm-trees, long lines of mud-built houses, 
and on both banks of the river swarms of 



228 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Arabs, mud hovels screened by yellow mats, 
and patient oxen working the water-wheels, 
which creaked and groaned dismally at every 
turn. In sailing back to the home of their 
host they saw, near the bridge of boats, crowds 
of Turks and other residents of Bagdad, in 
their gay costumes, and were especially at- 
tracted by the fine large white asses on which 
many riders were mounted. 

"I never saw a white donkey before," said 
Ronald. 

"White asses are highly esteemed in the 
East," replied the consul. " Their owners often 
dye their tails and ears bright-red. They also 
spot their sides with the same color for the 
use of the priests and men of the law. In the 
Book of Judges, addressing such dignitaries, 
Deborah says, in her triumphal song, * Speak, 
ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judg- 
ment,' etc. Thus, you see, that the white ass is 
an animal which has long been held in honor by 
Oriental nations." 

The arrival of the yacht at her moorings 



Walking about Bagdad. 231 

at sunset put an end to further conversa- 
tion about the white ass, and the boys, after 
reaching the consul's parlor, finding the gentle- 
men inclined to talk upon political questions, in 
which they were little interested, took occasion 
to retire early to their chambers. 



232 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



CHAPTER XII. 

FAREWELL TO BAGDAD. 

"T WONDER why they named this place 
J- Bagdad," said Ronald to the professor, the 
next evening, after a conversation with Richard 
about the caliphs. 

" That is a disputed question," Mr. Benedict 
replied. " Persian writers say that it was orig- 
inally founded by their kings, who named it 
Bagh Dad. Bagh signified a garden, and Dad 
was the name of an idol once worshiped on 
the site of the new city. Hence, according to 
the Persians, the meaning of its name, was, the 
Garden of Dad." 

" Dad !" exclaimed Richard, laughing ; " what 
a name for a god ! It is almost as flat as daddv 
— daddy's garden. Pshaw ! But even that 
would be good enough for it now, though it is 
more a swamp than a garden to-day." 



Farewell to Bagdad. 233 

The professor smiled at Richard's nonsensical 
remark, and said : " But the Mohammedans 
claim that Bagdad was first built by the great 
Caliph Almanzor in the year 762, and that it 
was named after Dad, a Christian hermit, who 
had lived on the spot and was its only inhab- 
itant. Which is the correct tradition no one 
can now decide. But after Almanzor had built 
and enriched it with beautiful mosques and 
stately palaces he called it Dar al Salem, the 
City of Peace. The caliphs, his successors, 
reigned over it Ove hundred years, and then it 
was captured by the Tartars." 

"But were those caliphs such great fellows 
as the i Arabian Nights ' say Haroun-al-Raschid 
was % " asked Ronald. 

"No doubt they kept a very magnificent 
court, and abounded in what Milton calls ' bar- 
baric pearls and gold.' Gibbon says, that when 
one of them, named Almamon, was married, no 
fewer than a thousand pearls of the largest size 
were showered on the head of the bride, and a 
vast amount of money was scattered among the 



234 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

people who crowded to see the magnificence 
displayed by their king." 

" That crowd had a grand scramble that day," 
said Richard. " Such fellows as Aladdin of the 
lamp must have had a jolly time. I wish that 
caliph would appear again while we are here. 
I should like to try for my share of his riches." 

"Without noticing Richard's trifling comment, 
the professor proceeded to say : " Let me tell you 
how the caliph Moctader received an embas- 
sador from the Greek emperor in the year 917. 
He assembled one hundred and sixty thousand 
soldiers, splendidly equipped, in the streets and 
around the gardens of his palace. Thousands 
of white and black servants, slaves, porters, and 
state officers richly dressed, with their belts glit- 
tering with gold and gems, stood waiting to do 
his will. Costly carpets covered the floors of 
his palace ; gorgeous tapestry adorned its walls. 
Among the wonderful spectacles displayed was 
a tree of gold and silver with eighteen spread- 
ing branches and numerous smaller boughs on 
which were leaves of the same precious metals. 



Farewell to Bagdad. 235 

Gold and silver birds, in great variety of species 
and plumage, were perched on this tree, and, 
by means of unseen machinery, were made to 
warble forth the notes natural to each. Through 
all this magnificent array the astonished embas- 
sador was led by the vizier to the throne of the 
proud caliph." 

" Do you suppose, professor, that all this was 
really done by the caliph, or was the scene in- 
vented by some Arabian poet ? " 

" When you come to read Gibbon's ' Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire,' you will find 
that he accepts it as literal history on the au- 
thority of Abulfeda, the Moslem historian. It 
may be somewhat colored, perhaps, yet I pre- 
sume it is substantially true. In the time of 
their highest vigor and military glory the ca- 
liphs, both in the east and west, that is, in Asia 
and Europe, were much given to magnificent 
display. "When you read Washington Irving's 
' Tales of the Alhambra,' and the history of 
the Moors in Spain, you will learn how richly 
the Spanish caliphs adorned their palaces. 



236 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Their historians tell with what lavish expendi- 
ture Abdalrahman III. constructed the city, 
palaces, and gardens of Zehra, upon which he 
spent fifteen millions of dollars. The walls of 
his hall of audience were incrusted with gold 
and pearls, and a great basin in the center with 
curious and costly figures of birds and animals. 
In a lofty pavilion of the gardens one of these 
basins and fountains was replenished, not with 
water, but with the purest quicksilver. And 
when this proud prince marched out to battle, 
" he was attended by a guard of twelve thou- 
sand horsemen, whose belts and cimeters were 
studded with gold." 

"Was not all that a specimen of Milton's 
' barbaric pearls and gold,' professor ? " inquired 
Konald. 

" Certainly there was a barbaric tone of dis- 
play in all those Arabian caliphs which the then 
imperfect European civilization was not itself 
sufficently refined to correct. Cruel and fierce 
as they were, yet they were not entirely without 
a serious side to their characters. This splen- 



Farewell to Bagdad. 237 

dor-loving Abdalrahman saw the vanity of his 
own magnificence as clearly as King Solomon 
did the insufficiency of his vast wealth to sat- 
isfy the mind. The caliph left a remarkable 
document in his closet, which shows that even 
he had learned to weigh the world in the scales 
of wisdom. It was found after his death. I 
think I can give it you if you wish to hear it." 
The lads expressed their desire to know 
what it was, and the professor recited it as fol- 
lows : " In that paper the caliph said, ' I have 
now reigned about fifty years in victory or 
peace ; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my 
enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches 
and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on 
my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to 
have been wanting to my felicity. In this situ- 
ation I have diligently numbered the days of 
pure and genuine happiness which have fallen 
to my lot ; they amount to fourteen — O man ! 
place not thy confidence in this present 
world.' " 

" If Abdalrahman wrote the truth about him- 
15 



238 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

self in that paper," said Richard, in his usual 
light tone of speaking, "I don't think all his 
splendid show amounted to much. Only four- 
teen happy days in fifty years ! Pshaw ! I'd 
rather be a Boston school-boy than a caliph, if 
that's all he could get out of a caliph's life." 

"But you forget, Richard," observed the 
more thoughtful Ronald, "that the caliph was 
not a Christian. 1 should think that a Chris- 
tian king might get more happiness than that 
out of a long reign." 

The professor said that, " no doubt, a Chris- 
tian king might find at least as much happiness 
in reigning justly and wisely over a nation as 
a Christian merchant or manufacturer might 
find amid the perplexities of business. In both 
cases the degree of happiness turns on the 
motive of the man. If the king reigned in 
the fear and love of God, he would find happi- 
ness. If he reigned to gratify his own self-will, 
his life would be barren of bliss. The same is 
true of men in all positions. God blesses 
those who do his will ; those who do their own 



Farewell to Bagdad. 239 

will he leaves to get what they can out of life 
without his blessing. And these are sure to 
find the world mere husks, which, however 
freely eaten, leave the soul hungry, empty, 
unsatisfied." Having uttered these just opin- 
ions the professor added : u Young gentlemen, 
it is getting late. Let us go to our rooms." 

The next morning, under the guidance of the 
courteous consul, our party went out to get a 
further view of the city once so magnificent, 
but now so ruinous and poor. He first con- 
ducted them to the terrace running along the 
banks of the Tigris in front of his residence. 
As stated before, it was ornamented with rows 
of orange-trees, and gave them a fine view of 
the turbid stream which flowed in sullen maj- 
esty at their feet, but which, as the consul 
remarked, not infrequently overflows its broken 
banks, and inundates parts of the city and of 
the country around it. 

" Why does not the government keep yonder 
decayed embankments in repair ? " inquired 
Doctor Benedict. 



240 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

"The Turk repairs nothing. He destroys, 
but does not build nowadays. He belongs to a 
race which has lost its energies, and seems to be 
waiting hopelessly for the hour of its approach- 
ing death." 

The consul, after this reply to the doctor's 
question, told them that in other days the banks 
of both the Tigris and the Euphrates were kept 
in order by the Arab tribe of the Montefik. On 
the death of its sheikh one of the dependent 
tribes refused to obey his son, and left the work 
assigned it undone. Ajel, the young sheikh, 
went to the tent of the rebel, and said to him, 
" Go with your men and repair those broken 
dams ! " The chief proudly refused. Turn- 
ing to his own followers, Ajel said, " Go to 
work and drive this rebel into the earth ! " 
His men seized the disobedient chief, threw 
him on the ground, and, driving a stake through 
his body, buried him in the foundation of the 
embankment, which they then proceeded to 
build up." 

"That young sheikh was cruel," said Rich- 



Farewell to Bagdad. 241 

ard, " but I like him because he showed real 
grit. I like such spunky fellows, who, having 
rights, know how to maintain them." 

The gentlemen smiled at Richard's spirited 
remark. The consul laughed outright, play- 
fully remarking, " It's a pity, young gentleman, 
that your father was not an Arab sheikh. In 
that case you might have become a thorn in the 
side of the hateful and hated Turk " — a remark 
under which Richard winced, but not knowing 
exactly whether it was a reproof or a compli- 
ment he made no reply. 

As they walked leisurely along the terrace 
toward the interior of Bagdad, the doctor re- 
marked that the spirited conduct of the young 
sheikh, Ajel, reminded him of a still younger 
Arab lad, mentioned by Mr. Layard in his 
account of his visit to the mounds of Babylon. 
The explorer found the aged governor of 
llillah, a town standing close to the ruins of 
that once mighty city, sick with asthma, and 
unable to attend to business. To Layard's 
surprise, the governor's son, a boy under four- 



242 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

teen years of age, received him with the dignity 
and decorum of an adult prince. He was a 
noble-looking lad, with black sparkling eyes and 
a bright olive complexion. He wore the long 
silken robes of a town Arab, with the fringed 
keffich, or head-kerchief, of a Bedouin falling 
over his shoulders. After hearing Mr. Layard's 
statements and plans, he showed himself very 
friendly, and used to call upon him with a 
crowd of secretaries, slaves, and attendants, and 
greet him with the gravity of a man and the 
courtesy of a gentleman. His salutation of 
Mr. Layard was : 

" We trust that it has pleased God to preserve 
your excellency's health. Our town is yours 
as well as our house. Our harem begs your 
excellency's acceptance of some milk and fran- 
colins. May we show that we are your slaves 
by ordering our troops to accompany you on 
your ride? Your person is more precious to 
us than our eyes, and there are evil men abroad 
in the desert," etc. 

This precocious boy seemed to have all the 



Farewell to Bagdad. 243 

affairs of the governorship in his hands, and to 
manage them with a vigor and judgment wor- 
thy of a man of mature years. Mr. Layard 
esteemed him very highly. 

By the time the doctor had finished this illus- 
tration of premature manliness in an Arab boy, 
the consul had led our party to the foot of the 
tallest minaret still standing in the half-forsaken 
streets. From its summit they could overlook 
the whole space still covered by the city and far 
out on the desert plain by which it is sur- 
rounded. But they saw nothing to admire. It 
seemed as if the angel of desolation had spread 
his dark wings over its ancient colleges, 
mosques, palaces, and gardens, defacing all 
their beauty, breathing decay upon their walls, 
and crumbling their very foundations into dust. 
And when they were told that the minaret 
upon which they were standing was the place 
of execution for criminals, who were cast head- 
long from its summit and dashed to death by 
their fall on the stones beneath, they shud- 
dered. Ronald looked somewhat pale. Shrink- 



244 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

ing from a spot so allied to death, he said to the 
professor : 

"Please, sir, let us go! I begin to feel as 
you told us yesterday Lady Blunt did when she 
wrote, ' Our first thought on arriving at Bagdad 
was how to get out of it.' For my part 1 pre- 
fer a week in our dear old Boston to a life-time 
in this miserable old city." 

This outburst of boyish disgust was greeted 
with a burst of laughter from the three gen- 
tlemen. The professor replied to it, by saying, 
"I am afraid you wont enjoy reading your 
1 Arabian Nights ' again, Master Ronald. Your 
recollections of the Bagdad of to-day will spoil 
all that is said in its pages about the Bagdad of 
the past." 

" I'll burn my copy of that book when I reach 
home, see if I don't ! " exclaimed the boy. " If 
it hadn't been for those stories I should never 
have been foolish enough to wish to come to 
Bagdad. And now I don't care how soon I get 
out of it." 

While Konald was making this passionate re- 



Farewell to Bagdad. 245 

mark the consul and the doctor began to de- 
scend the stairs of the minaret. The rest of the 
party followed them. Before returning to the 
consul's mansion they walked through the ba- 
zars. These structures were once so crowded 
with merchants, and so rich in merchandise, as 
to be a spectacle of wealth and splendor; bat 
as seen by our travelers, they wore an air of 
neglect and desolation. There was little doing 
in them. Still, their dullness was somewhat 
relieved by the varied dresses of the Jews, 
Arabs, Turks, and Europeans, who still fre- 
quented them for the purposes of trade. Some 
of their dresses were gay and all were odd, and 
though the boys had seen most of them the day 
before, they yet attracted their attention and 
excited, if not their admiration, yet their won. 
der and surprise, that men should wear gar- 
ments which to American conceptions seemed 
more fit for masquerades than for places of trade 
and business. 

While the doctor went out in the afternoon 
of that day to make arrangements for their 



240 Bc*r Travelers in Arabia. 

I 

departure,fyihe boys asked the professor many 
questions concerning the causes which led to the 
fall of Bagdad from its ancient magnificence. 
" Please to tell us," said Konald, "how those 
rich and mighty caliphs, who once made it so 
rich and beautiful, came to lose their wealth and 
power." 

" You know," replied Mr. Benedict, " that 
kings who live in luxury, and can indulge their 
passions without hinderance, are apt to form 
habits which weaken them both in body and 
mind. After a time their sons, by inheriting 
their vices, become feeble-minded, vain, and 
unfit to govern or to defend their throne. It 
was so with the caliphs. Many of them, de- 
spite their cruelty, were vigorous, and even 
wise rulers and great soldiers, like one of the 
sons of Ali, the grandson of Mohammed, who 
united in himself the devout character of a 
Moslem saint and the military prowess of a 
brave soldier. To illustrate his religious feel- 
ings we are told that, while he was at dinner 
one day, a slave dropped a dish of scalding soup 



Farewell to Bagdad. 247 

on his person. The unlucky but quick-witted 
slave fell upon his face before his master, and, 
quoting from the Koran, said : 

" ' Paradise is for those who command their 
anger.' 

"'lam not angry,' replied the son of Ali. 

"'And for those who pardon offenses,' added 
the slave. 

" i I pardon your offense,' rejoined the son of 
Ali. 

" ' And for those who return good for evil,' 
said the slave. 

" i I give you your liberty and four hundred 
pieces of silver,' responded the pious follower 
of the prophet. 

"Like this man and your favorite Haroun 
many of the early caliphs were strong and sen- 
sible rulers ; but at last a caliph, named Mosta- 
sem, sat on their throne, at the time when a 
Tartar king, named Hulakoo, a grandson of 
that famous scourge of the nations, Genghis 
Khan, invaded his empire at the head of his 
army of Moguls. Instead of taking the field 



248 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

at the head of his armies, Mostasem spent his 
time feasting and drinking in his harem. When 
Hulakoo sent an embassador to his court requir- 
ing him to become his tributary, he sent this 
stupidly vain reply : 

" ' On the divine decree is founded the throne 
of the sons of Abbas, and their foes shall surely 
be destroyed in this world and in the next. 
"Who is this Hulakoo that dares to rise against 
them ? If he be desirous of peace, let him in- 
stantly depart from the sacred territory, and 
perhaps he may obtain from our clemency the 
pardon of his fault.' " 

" What a foolish fellow ! " exclaimed Richard. 

" Yes, he was foolish, and unfortunately he 
had fools for his counselors. His vizier en- 
couraged his folly by saying, ' Thou art right, 
O king of the faithful, for if these barbarians 
were even now in the city our women and chil- 
dren, standing on the terraces, would be suffi- 
cient to overwhelm them with stones.' " 

"Well, if Mostasem believed such nonsense 
as that, he deserved to lose the throne which 



Farewell to Bagdad. 249 

once belonged to the mighty Haroun," said 
Eonald. 

" And he did lose it," answered the professor. 
" Hulakoo replied to his message by leading his 
fierce Moguls to Bagdad and besieging it. After 
two months they poured through the breaches 
they had made in its walls, sacked it with great 
slaughter of its defenders, and put an end to the 
race of the caliphs, for the pitiless Hulakoo or- 
dered Mostasem to be put to death." 

"Did the Tartars hold Bagdad long?" in- 
quired Ronald. 

"About three hundred years. Tamerlane 
then drove them out. After that it had various 
masters and suffered much from many wars, 
until, in 1638, it fell into the hands of the 
Turks, who signalized their victory by the cruel 
massacre by torch-light of most of its inhabitants 
after they had capitulated. The Turks have 
held it ever since, but its commerce has been 
pretty much destroyed by the new routes taken 
by steam-ships from Europe to India. Its rich 
merchants have forsaken its bazars and have 



250 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

gone to Bussorah, a growing city on the River 
of the Arabs,' which is formed by the junction 
of the Euphrates and Tigris Eivers. Should 
a railroad be built down the Valley of the 
Euphrates, Bagdad will soon become a forsaken 
city, even if some stronger people than the 
Turks should become its masters." 

"What savages those Turks were, and still 
are, I guess, when they have the power ! " ex- 
claimed Richard. 

After this conversation our travelers began 
their preparations for quitting Bagdad on the 
morrow. 



Home by Way of Damascus. 251 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

HOME BY WAY OF DAMASCUS. 

rjIHE doctor, who managed all the traveling 
-*- arrangements of our party, met with several 
petty vexations in making preparations for their 
departure from Bagdad. For various reasons 
nearly all their servants left them, and it was 
difficult to replace them satisfactorily with oth- 
ers. But after a delay of two days their reso- 
lute leader had all things ready, and, bidding 
adieu to their generous host, they started to re- 
trace their steps from the once proud Queen of 
the Tigris to the banks of the Euphrates at Seg- 
lawiyeh. There they overtook a caravan which 
had left Bagdad the day before bound for Da- 
mascus. With this caravan they concluded to 
travel up the river to a town named Ana, and 
thence across the Desert to Damascus, the most 
ancient city in the world. 



252 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Their journey along this route was more tire- 
some than their ride from Scanderoon through 
Aleppo to the Arab camp, and thence to Bag- 
dad. The slowness with which the caravan 
traveled, its daily routine, unvaried by advent- 
ures of any moment, and only enlivened at 
times by apprehensions of attacks from pred- 
atory Arab bands, with the heat of the ap- 
proaching spring weather, made their life for 
some twenty days very tiresome and monotonous. 
Whenever the neighborhood of their camping- 
ground promised a fox to hunt or a supply of 
game for their larder, the doctor took the boys 
with him, and being, as you know, a skilled 
sportsman, he rarely failed, with their aid, to re- 
plenish their game-bag. Hence a minute ac- 
count of the daily details of their journey would 
not be of much interest to the reader. If, 
therefore, he will imagine them arrived at the 
western limit of the Desert, riding with their 
servants, their muleteers, and their faithful 
Hassan, on his yet unwearied camel, he may 
learn from their conversation what impression 



Home by Way of Damascus. 253 

was made upon them when the towers and min- 
arets of Damascus first met their vision. 

After leaving the sandy soil and stony ridges of 
the almost barren Desert they found themselves 
entering a vast plain, green as emerald and appar- 
ently boundless, except where the " steep sides 
of Lebanon " rose in the distance like " the prom- 
ontories of a mountainous coast stretching out 
into a motionless sea." As they trotted briskly 
ahead of the toiling caravan along the road into 
this garden-like plain, the professor stimulated 
the curiosity of his youthful pupils by saying : 

" We shall soon catch our first glance of a 
city of which a traveler, named Maundrell, once 
said : " There is no place in the world which 
can promise to the beholder at a distance a 
greater voluptuousness.' " 

To this remark the doctor added : " In say- 
ing that, Mr. Maundrell only echoed a sentiment 
common to most Europeans and Americans who 
see this ancient city for the first time. Even 
the Turks have a tradition that when their 

prophet, standing on one of the hills of Leba- 
16 



254 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

non, beheld its ravishing beauty, he paused and 
said : £ There is but one paradise designed for 
man, and for my part I am resolved not to take 
mine in this world.' Then turning his horse's 
head, he instantly rode away, lest if he entered 
its walls he should be enticed by its delights to 
neglect the stern duties of his prophetic mis- 
sion." 

Richard remarked that he doubted whether 
the prophet ever uttered such words or did such 
a foolish deed. He thought the story was all 
very well as a legend, but he could not see how 
the beautiful situation of a city could make it 
dangerous to any man's virtue, much less to 
that of a prophet who had great wars on his 
hands. 

Ronald thought that even a prophet might be 
so enchanted by a beautiful city as to desire to 
make it a place of rest from the battles and 
bloodshed of his previous life. Then, while 
looking intently before him, he suddenly ex- 
claimed : " See ! how beautiful yonder gardens 
appear." 



Home by Way of Damascus. 255 

" And, beyond them, see the lovely city, 
' the Eye of the East,' as a Roman emperor is 
said to have called it," exclaimed the doctor. 
" There it stands like a queen clothed in robes 
of beauty and adorned with glistening jewels." 

Yes, there was Damascus, sitting in stately 
glory in the midst of a wilderness of gar- 
dens. Its white houses, its castles, its mosques 
with their domes and minarets, gleamed 
brightly in the clear Syrian sun, and our trav- 
elers, as by a common instinct, reined in their 
horses and paused to feast their eyes on the 
peerless beauty of a prospect which has com- 
pelled the admiration of men through the ages. 

Such phrases as " How grand ! " " How beau- 
tiful ! " " What a glorious city ! " " Damascus is 
worth ten thousand Bagdads ! " etc., seemed too 
poor and feeble to express the enthusiastic feel- 
ings of the boys. Richard at length forced 
a merry laugh from the doctor and the professor 
by saying : 

"Well, I used to think Boston looked fine 
with her queenly State-house dome on Beacon 



256 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

Street, but Damascus beats Boston. Yet, after 
all, though Damascus is very fine to look at, 
outside, I guess Boston is the place to 
live in." 

After the laugh, occasioned by this frank 
declaration of Richard's love for Boston had sub- 
sided, our travelers rode gently on toward the 
" wilderness of gardens" which surround the city 
on every side. Tangled shrubs, with gorgeous 
roses blooming among their branches, fruits and 
flowers, fountains and rivulets of living water, 
met their eyes, while the sweet murmurings 
of gently flowing streams delighted their ears. 
Besides these beauties of nature and cultivation 
they found themselves, as they drew nearer the 
city, among swarms of Syrian peasants, Arabs 
of the Desert, Turks, and J ews riding on mules, 
horses, asses, and camels, or trudging on foot 
toward the city gates. These various figures 
gave animation to the scene, and the delight 
of our boy- travelers was like an overflowing 
stream, and Richard repeatedly cried out, en- 
thusiastically : 



Home by Way of Damascus. 257 

" This is the jolliest sight we liave seen since 
we left home ! " 

Konald, habitually thoughtful, said less, though 
he appreciated what he saw as highly as his 
brother. The sight of Damascus had brought to 
his mind one of the grandest scenes described 
in the New Testament. And when Richard 
rallied him because of his grave looks, he re- 
plied : 

" I have been thinking that perhaps we are 
not far from the spot where Paul saw something 
grander than yonder city, and where he heard a 
voice which filled him with an awful fear, and. 
moved him to become a disciple of our blessed 
Lord. 

The professor replied to this remark by 
pointing in a certain direction, and saying: 

" There is a church and convent standing at 
a considerable distance from us, which tradition 
affirms to be on the exact place where Saul be- 
held the resplendent glory of the living Jesus, 
and heard him speak the words which won him 
to his cause. But tradition, unsupported by 



258 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

evidence, is a very unreliable witness. Most 
likely he was much nearer the city than where 
the church stands when Jesus spoke to him. 
But Saul was not a man given to note things 
which were not essential. To him the fact that 
Christ actually spoke to him was every thing. 
The precise spot upon which he fell terror- 
stricken at that mighty voice was not important 
enough to be so described or pointed out as to 
become known to the primitive Church. When 
the Christian Church began to substitute super- 
stition for truth, and outward observances for 
inward religion, she then began to attach im- 
portance to the scenes of the great events which 
belonged to her early history." 

After riding a little farther the doctor ob- 
served that the waters which they saw and heard 
gurgling through the gardens were the "streams 
from Lebanon," the " rivers of Damascus," and 
the outflow of the river Abana, which ISTaaman, 
the leper, preferred to the waters of Israel. The 
Greeks called it the " river of gold ; " and it 
has been well said that it is the "life of Da- 



Home by Way of Damascus. 259 

mascus," since, without it, the fertile plains and 
romantic gardens, amid which the city stands, 
would soon be transformed into a part of the 
desert from which it has been redeemed by its 
refreshing and fertilizing waters constantly de- 
scending from the cool recesses of the mountains 
of Lebanon. 

Further conversation soon became difficult, 
owing to the increasing number of persons and 
animals on the road. Therefore, following the 
lead of the doctor, they proceeded slowly toward 
the city along streets which, being embowered 
with trees, seemed, as a recent writer has well 
said, " more like the green country lanes of En- 
gland than city streets." Gardens, groves of 
poplar trees, with olives, walnuts, pomegranates, 
and apricots, met the eye continually. Streams 
flowed by the road side, and water bubbled from 
many a fountain, making a scene w T hich Ronald 
declared to be a perfect fairy-land. 

Yet in spite of all this freshness and beauty, 
the boys were not a little glad when they found 
themselves in the pleasant rooms of the great 



260 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



rambling Damascus Hotel, kept by a Greek 
•named Dimitri. Their windows opened on a 
spacious court, cooled and enlivened by a plash- 
ing fountain. Throwing themselves on a soft 
divan, they yawned with weariness and rejoiced 




COURT OP HOUSE IN DAMASCUS. 

together over the fact that their long horseback 
rides across the Desert w T ere at an end. 

" I am glad that Dr. Benedict is going to 
sell our horses and get rid of our muleteers and 
servants," said Richard. " I have had so much 



Home by Way of Damascus. 261 

riding horseback this winter that I don't care if 
I never get into a saddle again." 

u But how are we to reach Beirut, where we 
are to take a steamer, if the doctor sells our 
horses?" asked Ronald. 

" I heard the doctor say that there is a splen- 
did macadamized road from here to Beirut, and 
that French diligences run over it every day," 
replied Richard. " Wont it be jolly to ride 
like civilized fellows again ? " 

Ronald thought it would be a very enjoyable 
change after their long and tedious journey from 
Bagdad, which, on account of their being in the 
saddle every day, without those intervals of rest 
they took in the Arab camp on their journey 
from Aleppo to Bagdad, had become very tire- 
some. Both boys were fairly sick of desert 
travel with a caravan. 

" Letters ! letters ! " exclaimed the professor, 
entering the room at this moment with a packet 
of letters from home, which he was sorting as 
he approached. 

u Hurrah ! " responded Richard, springing 



262 Boy Travelers est Arabia. 

from the divan and clutching his share of the 
packet with nervous haste. 

The j had received letters from home while at 
Bagdad, but these brought them much later 
news from their parents and friends at Boston. 
Of course, they seized them with eagerness, and 
as the letters contained nothing but good news 
they were read with intense delight. Their 
effect on the two boys was to fill them with 
such desire to see their beloved parents and to 
mingle with their school friends, that for the 
remainder of the day all further talk about 
Damascus and the Desert was suspended 
Boston and their friends in and about Boston 
were in the ascendant until night, and then they 
became the inspiration of their dreams. 

The next morning at the breakfast table the 
doctor told them that they had two days to 
spend in Damascus, and after that, he said, they 
would ride by diligence in one day to Beirut, 
less than fifty miles distant, where they would 
take a steam-ship, cross the Mediterranean Sea 
to a European port, and sail thence, without 



Home by Wat of Damascus. 263 

further delay, to their native land. When they 
had eaten their morning meal the doctor rose 
and said : 

" I have my hands full of business to-day, 
young gentlemen, and while I am busy disposing 
of our horses and camp equipage, I must leave 
you to the care of my brother, who will show 
you the lions of Damascus." 

" Lions ! Do they have lions in Damascus ? " 
asked Richard, with surprise both in his looks 
and tones. 

" Ha, ha, ha ! Why, Dick, don't you know 
that things peculiar to a city and worth seeing 
are called lions?" replied Eonald, laughing 
merrily at his brother's dullness. 

" You have me there, Ronnie," replied Rich- 
ard, slightly blushing ; " but what is there worth 
seeing in Damascus ? " 

"I really don't know," rejoined Ronald, 
" though I should like to see the street where 
Ananias lived, which Luke says, in the Acts of 
the Apostles, was named ' Straight.' Then there 
is the house in which Ananias lived, and the 



264 



Boy Teavelees in Aeabia. 



window in the city wall through which Saul was 
let down in a basket. I should like to see them." 




STREET CALLED STRAIGHT. 



" Pshaw ! " exclaimed Richard. " Do you 
think that the house of Ananias, which was 
standing nearly nineteen hundred years ago, 



Home by Way of Damascus. 265 

is still in existence? "Why not extend yonr 
thoughts still farther back, and inquire where 
you can find the house of Eliezer, who lived in 
Damascus before he became steward of the great 
sheikh, Abraham, the patriarch of the Jews ? " 

" O, I forgot ! or, rather, I spoke without 
thinking," replied Konald. Then addressing 
Professor Benedict, he asked, "But they do 
show people the house of Ananias and the win- 
dow in the wall, don't they, sir ? " 

The professor said they did, and then, on be- 
ing informed that a guide whom the doctor had 
engaged was in waiting, they left the hotel and 
proceeded first to the street called " Straight." 

" Do you call this street straight ? " asked 
Richard, after they had passed through a street, 
which ran for about a mile from the eastern to 
the western gate of the city. " If this is straight, 
then a ram's horn is straight." 

"It was both a straight and a broad noble 
avenue, with rows of pillars on each side, when 
Luke wrote," the professor said ; " but the houses 
since built, and rebuilt perhaps several times, 



266 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



liave not been kept on the lines which once 
bounded it. It is, as you say, crooked enough 
now to claim a place in the labyrinth of streets 
which this old city contains. But here we are, 




SAUL S ESCAPE FROM A WINDOW. 

our guide informs me, at the house of Ananias." 

Neither the professor nor the boys believed 

that Ananias ever lived in the house pointed out 

as that good man's abode, albeit they found one 



Home by Way of Damascus. 



267 



or two devotees devoutly kneeling in the cellar, 
which the guide assured them was actually a 
part of the building in which Saul found the 
friend who restored him to sight, and taught 
him to see by faith the mighty Beiug who 
had spoken to him on the plain without the 




EAST GATE OP DAMASCUS. 



city. They were equally in doubt about the 
identity of the window in the wall from 
which Saul was let down, and to the top of 
which they mounted. 

While viewing the suburbs of the city from 



268 Boy Travelers in Arabia, 

the top of one of its gates, the professor was led 
by the questionings of the boys to talk of the 
conquest of Damascus by the Saracens in A. D. 
644, more than twelve hundred years ago. "It 
was at that time," he said, " a city of the Eoman 
Empire. The Moslems were invading Syria. 
Heraclius, the Roman emperor, sent twenty 
thousand men to drive back the Arabian invad- 
ers, and to protect Damascus. These veteran 
troops met the Moslems at Aiznadin, and were 
sadly beaten. The victors then inarched to Da- 
mascus, which, being well defended by ramparts 
and warlike engines, was not to be easily captured. 
Not having the battering-rams needed to over- 
throw its strong walls, the Saracen commander 
spread his army round about it with a purpose 
of taking it by assault or treachery, if occasion 
offered, or to reduce it to submission by starva- 
tion. Before each of its seven gates the war- 
like Arabs spread their tents, and watched to cut 
off supplies from without, and to resist sallies 
fo the troops from within. Then fear, dismay, 
and despair began to reign over the doomed city. 



Home by Way of Damascus. 269 

"There was, however, one heroic Greek within 
its walls. He stirred the courage of the people, 
and rallied them to make a sally npon the en- 
emy. To rouse their enthusiasm and inspire 
them with confidence he erected a lofty crucifix 
over the principal gate of the city. To this cru- 
cifix the bishop and clergy marched in solemn 
procession. They placed a copy of the Bible be- 
fore the image of our Lord, and then prayed 
the Son of God to give victory to their arms. 

" After this superstitious reverence before the 
crucifix, they began the battle. The brave 
Greek, who had moved the Damascenes to fight, 
was a superior archer. Planting himself on the 
ramparts, armed with his bow, he shot many of 
the boldest Saracens. One of his victims was 
named Arban. When he fell his wife, who 
had followed him to the field, folded his ex- 
piring form to her breast and said : 

" 'Happy art thou, my dear. Thou art gone to 

the Lord, who first joined us together, and then 

parted us asunder. I will avenge thy death, and 

endeavor to the utmost of my power to come to 
17 



270 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

the place where thou art, because I love thee. 
I have dedicated myself to the service of God.' 

" She next proceeded, without further sign of 
grief, to bury her husband with the customary 
rites. This done, she grasped her bow, which 
she had been trained to use in her youth, and 
sought a spot from whence she could reach the 
noble Greek archer whose arrow had killed her 
husband. Her first arrow struck down the 
standard-bearer of the Christian army. Her 
second pierced the eye of the heroic Greek, 
who stubbornly refused to quit the rampart, but 
had his eye dressed on the spot from whence he 
continued to direct the battle until night put an 
end to the terrible strife. But his heroism was 
useless. The defenders of the city were dis- 
heartened, and, knowing that they could not 
long resist the fierce assaults of the Saracens, 
they made terms by which the crescent flag of 
Islam soon floated on their towers, where it 
still floats in haughty defiance of that Christian 
civilization which is slowly but surely destroying 
the life of Mohammedanism." 



Home by Way of Damascus. 271 

After quitting the battle-scarred ramparts of 
the city our party wandered about the bewilder- 
ing wilderness of streets of which Damascus is 
made up. They saw very little to excite their 
interest except in the workshops of the skillful 
artificers in brass, copper, steel, and jewelry, and 
in the cool, richly furnished bazars. In one of 
the former Richard selected a suit of ancient 
armor, which, said he, " will look first-rate when 
stood up in our front hall. I know father will 
like it." In the latter Ronald selected a Persian 
rug, which, said he, " I wish to take home to 
my mother as a memento of our trip to Bag- 
dad." The professor, approving their choice, 
purchased these articles and ordered them to be 
packed for transportation to America. 

Their impressions of Damascus, after their 
first day's ramble about its streets, were not in- 
aptly expressed by Richard that evening when 
the doctor asked him, " What think you of Da- 
mascus ? " 

" Not much," replied the lad. " It is a 
gloomy, dirty, musty old place, with streets as 



272 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

irregular as cow-paths, lots of mean houses, and 
only a fewthat are worth looking at. It is not 
half as bad as Bagdad, though." 

" But we haven't been into the great mosque 
yet, nor over the citadel, nor inside the tomb of 
the mighty Saladin," said Ronald. " For my 
part, I like Damascus, not because it is beauti- 
ful inside, for it isn't, but because it is so ancient, 
and makes things of which 1 have read in the 
Bible seem so real. Why, when our guide told 
us that the hospital for lepers stands on the site 
of Naaman's house, I could almost fancy I saw 
that Hebrew maid who sent her lord to Elisha, 
coming out of the hospital door to greet him on 
his return home ! " 

The doctor smiled approval of Ronald's ap- 
preciation of spots made sacred to him by their 
association with events of the olden time, and, 
turning to Eichard, he said : " I suppose, Master 
Richard, you will not admit the claim of the 
Damascenes, that the body of Adam was formed 
out of the red earth which is found in their 
lovely gardens ? " 



Home by Way of Damascus. 273 

"No, sir" replied the boy, with emphasis. 
" I believe in our Bible, but I think the people 
here are pretty much what the Athenians were 
when Paul said to them, ; I perceive that in all 
things ye are too superstitious.' " 

" That's pretty good for a lad of your age," 
said the doctor, " and it isn't far from the truth. 
These Damascenes, both Christians and Mos- 
lems, are, indeed, the slaves of superstition, and 
think more of alleged sacred localities than of 
the spiritual relations and teachings of the facts 
which they love to commemorate." 

The next day our party visited the Great 
Mosque, originally a heathen temple, then a 
church in which good men worshiped the living 
Christ through many ages, and in which it may 
be reasonably hoped the voice of the Christian 
will again be heard before many years. Beneath 
its dome they were shown an inclosure beneath 
which, as superstition teaches, is the head of John 
the Baptist. Standing near the mosque they saw 
the tomb of the great Saladin, whose military 
genius proved more than a match for the heroic 



274 



Boy Travelers in Arabia. 



courage and fiery valor of Richard the Lion- 
hearted. This mausoleum excited Richard's en- 
thusiasm, and moved him to tell of Saladin's 

filWlliilii 

II 




INTERIOR OF GREAT MOSQUE. 

chivalric generosity in sending wine cooled with 
snow to his sick and equally chivalric adversary ; 
and of the effect of King Richard's courage on 
the people's minds being so great as to make 
the mothers of the country quiet their little 
ones with the mention of his terrible name ; and 
to cause Syrian men to say to a starting horse, 
" Dost thou think King Richard is in that 
bush?" 



Home by Way of Damascus. 275 

" Well, Master Richard," said the professor, 
after the boy had finished his heroic speech, 
"if coming to Damascus does you no other 
benefit, it has at least led you to call up your 
historic reading. Possibly our whole journey 
may contribute hereafter to an increase of your 
interest in the history of the powerful nations 
whose armies once traversed the ground over 
which we have passed so peacefully since we 
landed at Scanderoon, nearly three months 
ago." 

Having spent two days in sight-seeing, our 
party left Damascus. Their ride in a French 
diligence over the splendid road, built by French 
engineers a few years ago, between Damascus 
and Beirut, was without incident. Eonald said 
of it: 

" This is easier riding than we had on our 
ponies across the Desert ; but I think that, tired 
as I am of being so much and so long on horse- 
back, I shall, nevertheless, enjoy a ride on a 
good horse as long as I live." 

"May be I shall, too," added Richard ; "but 



276 Boy Travelers in Arabia. 

this rolling along over a smooth road is jolly. 
I like it." 

At the beautifully situated city of Beirut* 
they found a steamer ready to sail the morn- 
ing after their arrival, and were nothing loath 
to exchange the easy life of a voyage across 
the Mediterranean for the daily rides of their 
desert trip. 

After landing at Marseilles they went by rail 
through France, from whence they crossed the 
English Channel, and took a steam-ship at Liver- 
pool bound to their native land. 

During their last day on board the steamer, 
the professor said to them : 

" Well, young gentlemen, what have you 
gained by your journey to Bagdad ? " 

To this Richard laughingly replied : 

"I have learned that there is no place like 
home." 

" I knew that before I started," said Ronald ; 
"but my journey has given me many new ideas 
about the upper part of the Arabian Desert, 

* See Frontispiece. 



Home by Way of Damascus. 277 

about the geography of that part of the East, 
about the Arabs, about Haroun - al - Raschid, 
about the Turks, and about the benefit of trav- 
eling in other countries to .young fellows like 
Dick and I. The world never looked so large 
to me as it does to-day, and dear old Boston 
never looked so delightful as I expect to find it 
to-morrow." 

" Well, I see that you are quite as much of a 
Bostonian as your brother, Master Ronald," 
replied the professor. " You evidently think 
that good city to be the hub of the universe." 

" It is the hub of my universe," rejoined the 
lad, laughing merrily at his own wit, and at the 
thought of being so near home. 



THE END. 



Our Missionary Heroes and Heroines; 

OR, HEROIC DEEDS DONE IN METHODIST MISSION- 
ARY FIELDS. 

By DANIEL WISE, D.D. 

Illustrated. 16mo $1. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS: 

Dr. Wise always writes well, and never better than in this hook. All 
our young people ought to read it.— Western Christian Advocate. 

Will stir the heart that contemplates the character and deeds so well 
brought out.— California Christian Advocate. 

Will interest all Christian hearts, and stir the zeal of all who read 
this interesting record.— Christian at Work. 

Dr. Wise has exhibited his characteristic tact and care in the selec- 
tion of his materials. . . . The glow and fervor of his style will make 
the book very popular and useful. — Christian Intelligencer. 

Certainly well adapted to increase the interest of the youth of our 
families and Sunday-sohools in the cause of missions.— Christian Ad- 
vocate. 

This book reads like romance. Parents should supply their sons and 
daughters with this elevating literature.— Iowa Methodist. 

A charming little book. . . . We never felt so much before of the 
honor and glory of missionary service.— New Orleans Christian Ad- 
vocate. 

Gives thrilling sketches of Methodist missionaries. . . . Should be 
read aloud in missionary circles. . . . Will awaken new enthusiasm. 
—Zion's Herald. 

An admirable book. Interesting events described in the most fas- 
cinating manner.— Pittsburg Christian Advocate. 

Will deepen the interest of young readers in the missionary work, 
while it will entertain them pleasantly.— Nashville Christian Advo- 
cate. 

Place this book in your library before you do another volume of Ac- 
tion. It is precisely the thing for you.— Michigan Christian Advo- 
cate. 

278 



